Data Classification

Data Access Security's Data Classification engine identifies and categorizes data based on data sensitivity, its impacts, and the importance of the data to the business.

The Data Classification engine is a mechanism to classify organizational data and to apply categories to that data based on both a content and behavioral analysis of files and Business Resources (Data Assets) residing on the various applications.

Data Classification can be used to create policies and rules to identify organizational “crown jewels”, that may include intellectual property. This can be anything from formulas, designs, patents, production secrets, board meeting minutes, confidential project documents, etc.

This feature provides both a content-based and a behavioral-based analysis of files and Business Resources residing on the various applications, which facilitates their classification into categories, based on those analysis.

For more information on content-based and behavioral-based classifications, see Classification Types.

The classification of both content and behavioral data depends upon user-configurable criteria. Classification results can serve as a data source on their own and can form the basis of queries on the forensics screens.

The classification results layer connects all other layers with data.

The Data Classification module supports using external classification of files in one of the following methods:

• DC Import - importing a spreadsheet into Data Access Security listing files and directories assigned to categories.

• Writing to file properties, creating rules in Data Access Security, and assigning categories to files that contain those properties.

These methods can be used for encrypted files without Data Access Security reading the file content.