Sensitive Data Discovery Tools
Sensitive Data Discovery Tools Overview
Top Rated Sensitive Data Discovery Products

These products won a Top Rated award for having excellent customer satisfaction ratings. The list is based purely on reviews; there is no paid placement, and analyst opinions do not influence the rankings. Read more about the Top Rated criteria.
Sensitive Data Discovery Products
(1-25 of 54) Sorted by Most Reviews
The list of products below is based purely on reviews (sorted from most to least). There is no paid placement and analyst opinions do not influence their rankings. Here is our Promise to Buyers to ensure information on our site is reliable, useful, and worthy of your trust.
Rubrik
Rubrik is cloud data management and enterprise backup software provided by Palo Alto-based Rubrik, Inc. It is a software platform that provides backup, instant recovery, archival, search, analytics, compliance, and copy data management in one secure fabric across data centers and…
Key Features
- Snapshots (98)95%9.5
- Management dashboard (99)95%9.5
- Retention options (99)92%9.2
IBM Security Guardium
IBM Security Guardium (formerly InfoSphere Guardium) is IBM's database security solution, that aims to offer organizations comprehensive visibility, actionable insights and real-time controls to help users comply with regulations, preserve privacy and secure your sensitive data — no…
Netwrix Auditor
Netwrix Auditor is designed to enable auditing of the broadest variety of IT systems, including Active Directory, Exchange, file servers, SharePoint, SQL Server, VMware and Windows Server. It also supports monitoring of privileged user activity in all other systems. According to…
Digital Guardian, by HelpSystems
The Digital Guardian Platform from HelpSystems (acquired in late 2021) is a cloud-delivered data protection platform purpose-built to stop data loss by both insiders and outsiders on Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems. Additionally, Digital Guardian User Activity Monitoring…
NetApp Cloud Data Sense
NetApp Cloud Data Sense uses artificial intelligence-driven technology to provide data governance across the entire data estate. Users can pinpoint cost-savings, identify compliance and privacy concerns, and find optimization opportunities.
Azure Information Protection
Microsoft's Azure Information Protection is a solution designed to enable users to better protect sensitive information. With it, users can control and secure email, documents, and sensitive data shared outside a company. From classification to embedded labels and permissions, users…
Orca SideScanning
Orca SideScanning, from Orca Security headquartered in Los Angeles, is a cloud computing security solution that agentlessly scans cloud workloads for vulnerabilities, and can detect sensitive data that may be exposed.
Varonis Data Classification Engine
The Varonis Data Classification Engine discovers sensitive content, shows users where it is exposed, and helps users lock it down (and keep it that way) without interrupting business.
Solix EDMS
Solix Enterprise Data Management Suite (Solix EDMS) is an information lifecycle management solution, from Solix Technologies in Santa Clara. Solix helps infrastructure and operations leaders implement the right policies, processes, and technology for application decommissioning and…
Osano
Osano, headquartered in Austin, Texas, is a data privacy platform boasting usage by more than 750,000 websites around the globe. With laws like GDPR and CCPA, it is designed so users can ensure their sites are compliant and mitigate the risk of being sued. The vendor states that…
Learn More About Sensitive Data Discovery Tools
What are Sensitive Data Discovery Tools?
Sensitive data discovery tools identify unknown sources of data within an organization, particularly sources of sensitive data, and classifies the risk associated with each source of data. These tools help organizations maintain data compliance and prevent damage from data breaches or loss, as well as enabling more efficient sensitive data storage. Sensitive data comes with its own classification metrics, based on what kind of demographic, health, and other individual-level data is in question, including consumer data in some cases. This classification allows organizations to better understand and mitigate the risks associated with storing sensitive data.
Sensitive data discovery tools are particularly relevant for large enterprises and orgs that work with lots of sensitive data, such as insurance companies and others that work with their end-users/customer’s sensitive or proprietary data. Managing, and even identifying, sensitive data is especially challenging when there are so many structured and unstructured sources of data, including sensitive data. Sensitive data discovery tools address this concern for enterprises.
Sensitive Data Discovery vs. BI Data Discovery
Sensitive data discovery overlaps in naming with business intelligence-related data discovery processes. However, the functions and associated products are very distinct. Sensitive data discovery focuses on identifying and securing risk associated specifically with sources of sensitive data. In contrast, BI-related data discovery focuses on combining disparate sources of data for collective analysis. Both classes of tools prioritize identifying sources of data within an organization, but for vastly different purposes.
Sensitive Data Discovery Tools Features & Capabilities
Many tools have specialized features and niches, but there are a few core areas that all sensitive data discovery tools should include:
Identification of known and unknown data sources
Classification of data’s sensitivity, vulnerability, and general risk profile
Mapping, visualization, and/or reporting on data sources within organization
Sensitive Data Discovery Tools Comparison
When comparing different sensitive data discovery tools, consider these factors:
Remediation tools: Identifying sensitive data is only helpful if the organization knows what to do with that information. What suggestions or proactive actions can each product take to improve the organization’s sensitive data storage and security posture? How well does each tool integrate with other Risk, Governance & Compliance (GRC) tools the organization uses?
Classification Process: How customizable, automated, and generally robust is the tagging and classification structure for each product? Ideally, the vendor should be able to identify either a demo or a similar use case and deployment to your organization to demonstrate prior success. Also consider how automated the classification processes are.
Ease of Use: In general, how easy to use is each product? How intuitive are its visualization capabilities? Will it require ongoing IT support and maintenance to use, or are most of the processes and alerts automated?
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