SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR DETERMINING WHETHER DATA INCLUDES STRINGS THAT CORRESPOND TO SENSITIVE INFORMATION

摘要

A system employs an interval scanning technique to identify potentially sensitive information, where bytes of data are analyzed in periodic sequence. Once potentially sensitive information is identified in data, the data is further evaluated for known delimiters adjacent to the beginning and end of the potentially sensitive information. A data string that is not surrounded by known delimiters is disregarded while a data string that is surrounded by known delimiters is further evaluated. Potentially sensitive data may also be searched for known identifiers of sensitive information. A fixed number of bytes of the data string may be analyzed using a trie algorithm, in which the value of a first byte is compared with the value of a corresponding first character of the known identifier. This process is repeated for the value of a second byte and the corresponding second character, and for a value of a third byte and the corresponding third character.