Use sensitive data protection to check for data risks in buckets

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You can use the OSS sensitive data protection feature to identify and locate sensitive data, such as personal information and passwords, in large volumes of data in OSS. This allows you to classify, manage, and protect your data to maintain security and meet compliance requirements.

Notes

  • The new and previous versions of sensitive data protection are supported in the China (Hangzhou), China (Shanghai), China (Beijing), China (Shenzhen), China (Heyuan), China (Guangzhou), China (Zhangjiakou), China (Hohhot), China (Qingdao), China (Chengdu), China (Ulanqab), China (Hong Kong), Singapore, Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur), Indonesia (Jakarta), Philippines (Manila), Germany (Frankfurt), and Japan (Tokyo) regions.

  • When you enable and use the new version of sensitive data protection for the first time, OSS provides each Alibaba Cloud account UID with a free trial quota. You can claim a free detection quota of 200 GB from the Alibaba Cloud Free Trial Center. The quota is valid for one year. If the total amount of scanned data exceeds the free quota within the year, the excess is charged at a rate of CNY 0.20 per GB.

Limitations

The new and previous versions of sensitive data protection have the following limitations:

  • Object storage class

    Only objects in the Standard and Infrequent Access storage classes support sensitive data detection. Objects in the Archive, Cold Archive, and Deep Cold Archive storage classes are not supported.

  • Single object size limit

    The maximum size of a single object that can be scanned is 200 MB.

  • Archive file limits

    An archive file can be decompressed up to 5 levels deep, with a maximum of 1,000 files after decompression. The system does not scan files that exceed these limits.

Sensitivity levels

New version

By default, OSS uses the New National Standard Template to identify sensitive data. Sensitivity levels are categorized as S0, S1, S2, S3, and S4. S0 indicates that no sensitive content was detected, and higher numbers signify greater sensitivity levels.

S0 is displayed differently on different pages. In the template, only data types of S1 to S4 are tagged with a sensitivity level. In the Sensitivity Level chart on the Dashboard tab, S0 indicates that no sensitive content was detected. When you filter an object list by Sensitivity Level, objects in which no sensitive content was detected correspond to the N/A filter option.

In the left-side navigation pane of the OSS console, choose Data Service > Content Security, and view the New National Standard Template on the Detection Configuration tab. Each data type in the template is tagged with its sensitivity level. Click a data type to view its Rule Category and sensitivity level in Rule Details, and view the Built-in Policy and Minimum Hits (Unstructured Data) of the rule in Rule Policy.

Previous version

Level

Data category

S1: Low

  • Sensitive corporate information: Unified Social Credit Identifier, Organization Code, Business License Number

  • Sensitive personal information: Social Security Number (SSN), SwiftCode, unverified ID card number

  • Sensitive location information: City (Chinese mainland), Province (Chinese mainland)

  • General sensitive information: Date

S2: Medium

  • Sensitive corporate information: Tax Registration Certificate Number

  • Sensitive personal information: Vehicle Identification Number (VIN), religion, name (English), name (Simplified Chinese), name (Traditional Chinese), military officer ID, phone number (Chinese mainland), license plate number (Chinese mainland)

  • Sensitive key information: AccessKeyId

  • Sensitive device information: URL, Mobile Equipment Identifier (MEID), International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI), IPv6 address, Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) connection string, MAC address, IP address

  • Sensitive location information: Address (Chinese mainland)

S3: High

  • Sensitive personal information: Phone number (US), credit card, ID card (Singapore), ID card (Malaysia), ID card (Hong Kong(China)), Mainland Travel Permit for Hong Kong and Macao Residents, passport number (Chinese mainland), email address, mobile number (Chinese mainland), bank card, ID card (Chinese mainland)

  • Sensitive key information: Privacy-Enhanced Mail (PEM) certificate, private key, AccessKey Secret

  • Sensitive location information: GPS location

  • Sensitive device information: Linux-Passwd file, Linux-Shadow file

  • Sensitive image information: ID card image (Chinese mainland), passport image (Chinese mainland)

N/A: Unknown risk level

No risks identified

OSS console

If you are using the previous version of sensitive data protection, we recommend upgrading. The new version offers the following core capabilities:

  • Customizable detection jobs that can scan all data in a bucket, or scan a specified scope defined by directory, prefix, or suffix conditions that you want to include or exclude.

  • Integration of large model-based detection to improve the accuracy of identifying key patterns, such as AccessKeys.

  • Comprehensive data security analysis reports with clear visualizations of sensitive data and its risk distribution.

New version

You can enable and use the new version of sensitive data protection in either of two ways, depending on your management needs. To enable, configure, and view across multiple buckets, use the Data Service > Content Security page in the OSS console. To manage a single bucket, operate directly on the bucket's details page. Both methods support the complete flow of enabling, configuring detection jobs, and viewing scan results.

Method 1: Operate on the Data Service > Content Security page

Suitable for enabling, configuring, and viewing across multiple buckets. In the left-side navigation pane of the OSS console, choose Data Service > Content Security. The page contains four tabs: Asset Center, Dashboard, Detection Configuration, and Identification Tasks.

Note

The Asset Center and Dashboard tabs display data by region, and the default region of the two tabs may be different. If no data is displayed on the page or the usage is 0, first switch the region on the page to the region in which the target bucket resides. The region drop-down list displays only the regions in which the current account has created buckets.

  1. Enable and authorize the service (Asset Center). On the Asset Center tab, you can view the Data Volume of each bucket in the selected region and whether Data Identification is enabled. You can also search by bucket name or filter by Identification Status. Click Asset Synchronization to start an OSS asset synchronization in all regions, and then click Refresh to view the latest assets. Select the buckets for which you want to enable sensitive data protection and click Bulk Authorize, or directly turn on the switch in the Data Identification column for a target bucket. Then, in the Configure Identification Task dialog box, complete the configuration based on the preceding parameter descriptions and click OK to enable the service.

    Note

    When you use Bulk Authorize, the selected buckets share the same detection job configuration, and you can authorize a maximum of 20 buckets at a time.

  2. Adjust the detection configuration (Detection Configuration). On the Detection Configuration tab, view the data types in the New National Standard Template. You can search for a data type by name. Click a data type to view its Rule Category and sensitivity level in Rule Details, and view the Built-in Policy and Minimum Hits (Unstructured Data) of the rule in Rule Policy. Rule Details also provides two switches: Model Status and Large Model Invocation. When you turn on Large Model Invocation, the large model detection engine is used, which significantly improves detection accuracy compared with the traditional engine. If you turn off Model Status for a rule, Large Model Invocation does not take effect.

    Important

    Starting from 00:00:00 on November 13, 2026 (UTC+8), the large model detection capability will be gradually billed on a pay-as-you-go basis in credits at CNY 1 per 100 credits. The exact number of credits consumed is subject to your bills. Fees for the scanned data volume of Sensitive Data Protection remain unchanged. If you do not need the large model detection capability, turn off the Large Model Invocation switch for each item on this tab. AI text detection and AI image detection are billed in credits at CNY 1 per 100 credits.After you turn off the switches, no credits are consumed, but the sensitive data detection accuracy may decrease.

  3. Manage detection jobs (Identification Tasks). On the Identification Tasks tab, view and configure detection jobs. The Task Name in the list is the name of the corresponding bucket. Click Edit in the Actions column and modify the settings in the Configure Identification Task dialog box. You can also turn off the switch in the Scan Status column to pause a task.

  4. View scan results and usage (Dashboard). On the Dashboard tab, you can view the OSS detection usage for the current account in the selected region, including the month-to-date Text Detection Size, AI Text Credit Usage, and AI image credit consumption, as well as the Data Trend, Sensitivity Level, Sensitive Information Statistics, and File Type charts. Note:

    • AI Text Credit Usage: After you turn on Model Status for the corresponding model and turn on Large Model Invocation on the Detection Configuration tab, each matched sensitive sample consumes about 0.15 credits, and a single model can match a maximum of 10 sensitive samples per object. These detections are billed on a pay-as-you-go basis in credits at CNY 1 per 100 credits, and the exact number of credits consumed is subject to your bills.

    • AI image credit consumption: Each detected image consumes about 0.3 credits, each image contained in an archive file also consumes about 0.3 credits, and each page of a PDF document is counted as one image. These detections are billed on a pay-as-you-go basis in credits according to the same rates.

    At the bottom of the tab, a list displays the scan summary of each bucket, including Bucket Name, Region, Files, Sensitivity Level, Number of Sensitive Files, and Last Scanned At. You can filter the list by region, bucket, and sensitivity level.

  5. View the sensitive data details of a single bucket and object. In the Actions column of the bucket summary list, click File details to view the bucket's Sensitivity Level Statistics, Data Identification Rate, Top 5 Hit Models, and object list in the panel that appears. Then, click Hit details in the Actions column of the object list to view the sensitive data details of a single object.

Method 2: Operate on a target bucket

Suitable for enabling and viewing sensitive data protection for a single bucket.

  1. Enable and authorize the service. The first time you use it, you must authorize and enable the service.

    1. Log on to the OSS console.

    2. Click Buckets, and then click the name of the target bucket.

    3. In the left-side navigation pane, choose Content Detection > Sensitive Data Discovery and Protection (SDDP).

    4. Click Authorize and Activate.

      Note

      If the current account is already authorized, for example, because you enabled sensitive data protection for another bucket, this button is no longer displayed for buckets for which the feature is not enabled. Instead, Configure Scan Task is displayed. Click it to proceed to the next step.

    5. In the Configure Identification Task dialog box, configure the scan parameters described in the following table, and then click OK.

      Parameter

      Description

      Scan Scope

      The scope of objects to scan in the bucket. Valid values:

      • Global Scan (default): scans all objects in the bucket.

      • Specify Scan Scope: In Scan Scope, select a condition type (Directory, Prefix, or Suffix), enter a value and press Enter to save it. Separate multiple values with commas (,). Then click Add as Include Condition or Add as does not contain conditions.

        A directory condition matches the prefix of the object key, and prefix and suffix conditions match the prefix and the suffix of the object name. For example, if the object key is dir1/dir2/file1.txt and the object name is file1.txt, the prefix file and the suffix txt match all objects whose names start with file and end with txt, and the directory dir1 matches all objects in the dir1 directory. Multiple match rules are combined by union: objects that meet an exclude condition are not scanned, and objects that meet an include condition are scanned. If no condition is specified, all objects in the bucket are scanned.

      Scan Concurrency

      The number of objects that a single task scans at the same time. Valid values: 4 to 20. Default value: 4.

      Sampling Scan

      Valid values: Full Scan (default) and Specify Sampling Ratio. If you select Specify Sampling Ratio, select 1/10, 1/100, 1/1000, or 1/10000 for Sampling Ratio.

      Scan Depth

      Valid values: Full Scan (default) and Specify Scan Depth. If you select Specify Scan Depth, select a value from 1 to 10 for Specify Bucket Path Depth to limit the directory levels that are scanned from the root path of the bucket.

      Scan Period

      The interval at which automatic scans are performed. Valid values: Daily, Weekly, and Monthly. If you select a weekly or monthly scan, you must also specify the day on which the scan is performed.

      Start Time

      The time range in which the scan task starts. Valid values: 00:00-06:00, 06:00-12:00, 12:00-18:00, and 18:00-24:00.

      Important

      Scan Once Now is selected by default. This means that a scan is triggered immediately after you save the configuration, and you are charged for the scan. If you do not want to scan immediately, clear this option.

      After the configuration is complete, OSS scans the data in the bucket based on the preceding scan scope and charges a fee for the scan. The duration of the initial scan depends on the amount of data. For an empty bucket, approximately 5 minutes elapse between the creation of the task and the end of the task. Allow some time before checking the results.

  2. View the scan results for the bucket. After the scan is complete, on the Sensitive Data Discovery and Protection (SDDP) page, you can view the bucket's Sensitivity Level Statistics, Data Identification Rate, and Top 5 Hit Models, as well as the OSS Detection Usage for Current Bucket card, which displays the month-to-date Scan File Size, AI Text Credit Usage, and AI image credit consumption.

    A list of the scanned objects in the bucket is displayed at the bottom of the page. The list displays the File name, File size (Byte), Type, Number of Hits, Hit Models, and Last Scanned At of each object. Objects in which no sensitive content was detected are also displayed in the list. For these objects, Number of Hits is 0 and Hit Models is displayed as Missed. You can filter the list by Hit Model and Sensitivity Level, or search the list by object name keyword.

  3. View the sensitive data details of an object. Click Hit details to the right of the target object to view the Hit Model, Sensitivity Level, Number of Hits, Data sampling result, and Tag of each piece of sensitive data detected in the object.

  4. Manage the detection job. In the upper-right corner of the Sensitive Data Discovery and Protection (SDDP) page, click Identification Configuration to modify the detection job configuration, or click Disable Sensitive Data Protection to disable sensitive data protection for the bucket. Suspend Task is not in the upper-right corner. It is displayed to the right of the Bucket Identification Task status in the upper-left corner of the page, and is used to suspend the running detection job.

    • If you suspend the task, the current scan stops and subsequent scheduled scans are not created, but the bucket remains authorized. After the task is suspended, the task status changes to paused, and Suspend Task changes to Start Task. Click it to resume scanning.

    • If you disable sensitive data protection, the detection job of the bucket is deleted. The job is no longer displayed on the Identification Tasks tab, the Data Identification switch of the bucket on the Asset Center tab is turned off, and the Sensitive Data Discovery and Protection (SDDP) page of the bucket returns to the state in which the feature is not enabled. To enable the feature again, configure a detection job again.

Previous version

  1. Log on to the OSS console.

  2. In the left-side navigation pane, click Buckets. On the page that appears, click the name of the target bucket.

  3. In the left-side navigation pane, choose Content Security > Sensitive Data Discovery and Protection (SDDP).

    Note

    In the current console, Sensitive Data Discovery and Protection (SDDP) is in the Content Detection group in the left-side navigation pane of a bucket. If you cannot find the entry in the Content Security group, look for it in the Content Detection group.

    Important

    The new version of sensitive data protection is now fully available. We strongly recommend that you upgrade.

    When you go to the Sensitive Data Protection page for the previous version, an upgrade banner appears at the top. Click Upgrade to switch to the new version.

    When you use the previous version of sensitive data protection, OSS performs only a full scan on the data in the specified bucket and charges a fee for the scan. After the scan is complete, you can view the percentage of each sensitivity level and the top 5 sensitive data types.

    At the bottom of the page, the Sensitive Data List displays the name, size, type, number of sensitive fields, highest sensitivity level, and number of matched rules for each object. You can click Hit Details to the right of a target object to view detailed information. You can also manage the scan job by using the Stop Scan and Scan Settings buttons.

Next steps

You can perform the following actions on objects that contain sensitive information:

Permissions

By default, an Alibaba Cloud account has full permissions. RAM users or RAM roles under an Alibaba Cloud account do not have any permissions by default. The Alibaba Cloud account or account administrator must grant operation permissions through RAM policies or Bucket Policy.

New version

Actions

Description

oss:*Sddp*

Permissions to manage the sensitive data protection feature, including enabling sensitive data protection for a bucket, configuring and modifying detection jobs, starting or pausing detection jobs, disabling sensitive data protection, and viewing sensitive data detection results.

Previous version

Actions

Description

oss:SddpCreateDataLimit

Scans data in a bucket.

oss:SddpDescribeBucketInstances

Views the scan results for a single bucket.

oss:SddpDescribeAllBucketInstances

Views the scan results for all buckets.

Billing

Fees for both the new and previous versions of sensitive data protection are based on the following billable items. For pricing details, see OSS Pricing. For the billing rules and billing cycles of each billable item, see Sensitive data protection fees.

Billable item

Description

Scanned data volume for Sensitive Data Protection (SddpScanSize)

Fees are charged based on the amount of data scanned when a full or incremental scan is performed on the data in an authorized bucket.

AI text detection

Detection that the large model detection capability performs on text. Billed in credits. Each text is detected as one detection if it contains no more than 2,000 characters; longer text is counted as multiple detections.

AI image detection

Detection that the large model detection capability performs on images. Billed in credits. Each image is detected as one detection only if it is no larger than 10 MB. Larger images are not detected.