The Hidden Threat: How Sensitive Information Leakage Puts Your Business at Risk

You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know – And That’s the Problem

Picture this: Your development team has built a robust e-commerce platform. Your security team has implemented comprehensive protection measures. Your compliance team has checked all the boxes. Yet somewhere in your application stack, full credit card numbers are quietly leaking through API responses, error messages, or debug logs – and you have no idea it’s happening.

This is the insidious nature of sensitive information leakage. How can you protect against threats you can’t see? How can you fix problems you don’t know exist?

The uncomfortable truth is that many organizations are unknowingly exposing sensitive data through misconfigured applications or poor development practices. While you’re focused on preventing external attacks, your own applications might be haemorrhaging the very data you’re trying to protect.

The Invisible Risk Hiding in Plain Sight

Sensitive Information Leakage (SIL) doesn’t announce itself with flashing red alerts or obvious breach indicators. Instead, it lurks in:

  • API responses that inadvertently return full payment card numbers
  • Error messages that expose more than they should
  • Debug logs that capture sensitive data in production
  • Third-party integrations that mishandle data formatting
  • Legacy code with outdated security practices

The challenge isn’t just that these leaks exist – it’s that they’re virtually impossible to detect without the right visibility tools. Your application might be PCI DSS compliant on paper while simultaneously violating those same standards in practice.

Introducing Imperva’s Sensitive Information Leakage Protection

Recognizing that you can’t fix what you can’t see, Imperva has developed a groundbreaking CloudWAF feature that finally gives you eyes into this blind spot. Our new Sensitive Information Leakage Protection doesn’t just detect these hidden vulnerabilities – it provides immediate, automated remediation.

How It Works:

Visibility First: The system continuously monitors your application traffic, identifying instances where full credit card numbers are being exposed in responses, logs, or other outputs.

Intelligent Masking: When sensitive data is detected, the solution automatically masks the first 12 digits of credit card numbers, ensuring compliance with PCI DSS requirements while maintaining application functionality.

Phased Deployment: Start with “alert mode” to understand the scope of your exposure, then seamlessly transition to “mask mode” for automatic protection – no application downtime required.

The Business Case: More Than Just Compliance

The value of SIL protection extends far beyond regulatory compliance:

Regulatory Protection: Avoid potentially devastating PCI DSS fines that can reach hundreds of thousands of dollars per incident.

Reputation Safeguarding: Prevent the reputational damage that comes with data exposure incidents – damage that can take years to recover from.

Operational Efficiency: Eliminate the time and resources spent on manual data leak detection and remediation.

Peace of Mind: Finally have confidence that your applications aren’t inadvertently exposing the sensitive data you’re working so hard to protect.

Available Where You Need It Most

This critical functionality is available across Imperva’s Professional, Enterprise, 360, and Flex Protect Plus plans, ensuring that organizations of all sizes can benefit from this essential protection.

The Time to Act is Now

Every day you operate without SIL protection is another day of potential exposure. The question isn’t whether your applications might be leaking sensitive information – it’s whether you’ll discover these leaks through your own proactive monitoring or through a compliance audit, regulatory investigation, or worse.

You don’t know what you don’t know. But now you can.

With Imperva’s Sensitive Information Leakage Protection, you finally have the visibility and automated response capabilities needed to address this hidden threat. Don’t wait for a costly wake-up call – take control of your sensitive data exposure today.

Ready to discover what your applications might be revealing? Contact your Imperva representative to learn more about implementing SIL protection and finally seeing the complete picture of your application security posture.

Because the most dangerous vulnerabilities are the ones you never see coming.

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