LIMITING EXPOSURE TO COMPLIANCE AND RISK IN A CLOUD ENVIRONMENT

• US 20160196446A1
• Filed: 08/24/2015
• Published: 07/07/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 01/07/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Allen, Corville O., Francis, Arthur R., Patrocinio, Eduardo A.
• Granted Patent: US 9,679,158 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6227 where protection concerns the structure of data, e.g. records, types, queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6245 Protecting personal data, e.g. for financial or medical purposes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/10 for controlling access to devices or network resources
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/20 for managing network security; network security policies in general filtering policies H04L63/0227
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1097 for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/085 Secret sharing or secret splitting, e.g. threshold schemes
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/02 Protecting privacy or anonymity, e.g. protecting personally identifiable information [PII]

Abstract

Minimizing data security risks may be provided. A number and type of confidential data in a computing environment may be determined to generate a metric for the type of confidential data in the computing environment. The metric of the type of confidential data may be compared to a predetermined metric for the type. Responsive to determining the metric for the type of confidential data exceeding a predetermined metric for the type, an action may be performed to prevent more entries of the type of confidential data in the computing environment.

Claims

1. A method of minimizing data security risks, comprising:

determining a number and type of confidential data in a computing environment to generate a metric for the type of confidential data in the computing environment;

comparing the metric of the type of confidential data to a predetermined threshold for the type; and

responsive to determining the metric for the type of confidential data exceeding a predetermined threshold for the type, performing an action to prevent more entries of the type of confidential data in the computing environment.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the action comprises at least one of pacing and preventing work from entering the computing environment.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the action comprises scheduling work associated with the type of confidential data into a different computing environment.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the computing environment comprises one or more of a virtual environment, a virtual machine (VM), a logical partition (LPAR), a workload partition (WPAR), a machine, a node, or public cloud, or combinations thereof.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the confidential data comprises one or more of social security number (SSN), patient data, personal information, or credit card number or combinations thereof.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the predetermined metric is configured based on a policy that is set for processing the type of confidential data.