Data Governance for Cohesity

Cohesity environments can contain concentrated copies of an organization's most valuable information, including customer records, financial data, employee information, intellectual property, and operational data. Common security risks include excessive administrative privileges, compromised credentials, misconfigured access controls, ransomware, unauthorized access, and sensitive data being retained in backups longer than necessary.

Backup environments can be particularly challenging because they may contain multiple copies of sensitive information across backup jobs, snapshots, and recovery environments. Security teams need to understand what sensitive data is stored, who can access it, how it is protected, and whether that access is appropriate.

Concentric AI continuously discovers and understands sensitive data in Cohesity environments and analyzes it alongside users, permissions, and access relationships. This helps security teams identify high-risk exposure, prioritize excessive access, and protect sensitive information across backup and recovery data.

Backup data is an attractive target because it can contain large, concentrated collections of sensitive information, often representing multiple copies and historical versions of production data. An attacker who gains access to a backup environment may be able to obtain valuable information at scale or compromise recovery capabilities during a ransomware attack.

Backup systems can also contain data that organizations no longer actively use but are required to retain, increasing the amount of sensitive information that may be exposed through a compromised account or privileged administrator.

Protecting backup data requires more than securing the backup infrastructure. Organizations need to understand what sensitive data exists in backups, who can access it, and whether privileged access is appropriately controlled.

Concentric AI continuously discovers and understands sensitive data in Cohesity environments and connects data sensitivity with users, permissions, and access risk. This helps security teams identify which backup data would have the greatest impact if compromised and prioritize protection accordingly.

To find and fix access control gaps in Cohesity, organizations should regularly review user accounts, administrative privileges, roles, service accounts, and other access paths. Security teams should identify excessive privileges, remove unnecessary access, disable stale accounts, and enforce least-privilege access for users and administrators.

However, access reviews alone do not reveal which permissions create the greatest data security risk. Security teams also need to understand what sensitive data each identity can access and whether that level of access is appropriate.

Concentric AI analyzes sensitive data in Cohesity alongside users, roles, permissions, and access relationships to identify excessive or inappropriate access. This helps security teams prioritize high-risk exposures and support remediation to reduce unnecessary access to sensitive backup and recovery data.

Yes. AI can help classify and protect sensitive data in Cohesity by identifying sensitive information across large volumes of backup and recovery data and understanding its context. This is especially valuable when backup environments contain many copies and historical versions of production data.

Concentric AI uses patented language models to understand the meaning and context of unstructured data rather than relying solely on keywords, regular expressions, or predefined patterns. It continuously discovers and classifies sensitive information in Cohesity environments, identifies where sensitive data resides, and analyzes who has access to it.

By combining AI-powered data understanding with access and risk analysis, Concentric AI helps security teams identify sensitive backup data, prioritize the information requiring the greatest protection, and reduce unnecessary exposure across Cohesity environments.

The compliance requirements that apply to data stored in Cohesity environments depend on your industry, location, and the types of information your organization collects and processes. Common regulations and frameworks include GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS, CCPA/CPRA, SOC 2, and NIST, along with industry-specific and regional data protection requirements.

Cohesity provides security, access controls, encryption, auditing, data protection, and governance capabilities that can help organizations meet compliance requirements. However, compliance applies to backup copies and retained data as well as production systems. Organizations need to understand what sensitive data is stored in backups, where copies exist, who can access them, and whether the data remains appropriately protected throughout its retention lifecycle.

Concentric AI complements Cohesity security and governance by continuously discovering and understanding sensitive data, analyzing access and exposure risks, and identifying potential compliance gaps. This helps security and compliance teams improve visibility into sensitive information across backup environments and reduce unnecessary exposure.