Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

David Edward Brookler

Tomer Weisberg

Tomer Rotstein

Oren Yossef

Alex Umansky

Tomer Levav

Shai Kariv

Gilad Mittelman

A system includes reception of a database query, determination of result set output columns associated with the database query, and determination, for each of the determined result set output columns, of one or more data sources associated with the result set output column. Sensitivity information is determined for each of the one or more data sources based on metadata, and result set sensitivity information is determined based on the determined sensitivity information. A result set is determined based on the database query, and the result set and the result set sensitivity information are transmitted.

Online determination of result set sensitivity

Query processors often receive queries to be processed against a data set, such as by inserting user input into parameterized fields of a query template. Some queries may be manipulated by user input (e.g., injection attacks) to introduce intentional errors in the query, where the error message reveals a protected detail about the data set, such as the existence or number of records or tables, the data set schema, and/or the configuration of the query processor. Instead, when the processing of a query results in an error message that contains a protected detail about the data set (including the query processor), the error message may be redacted to redact the protected detail before providing a redacted error message that avoids revealing information that might otherwise be usable to exploit the contents of the data set and/or the integrity of the data processor.

Error message redaction in query processing

Query processors often receive queries to be processed against a data set, such as by inserting user input into parameterized fields of a query template. Some queries may include a conditional statement, and manipulation of user input (e.g., injection attacks) may introduce a delay through a conditional branch. The time required to fulfill the query may indicate which conditional branch was taken, thus revealing properties of the data set that are intended to be withheld. Instead, a query processor may examine the query to identify, between a pair of conditional branches, a processing delay of the first conditional branch as compared with the second conditional branch. The query processor may identify a query adaptation that reduces the processing delay of the first conditional branch as compared with the second conditional branch, and evaluate the query against the data set according to the query adaptation to present a query result.

Delay detection in query processing

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Maalot, Israel

David Edward Brookler