Snowflake Employee Data Exposure Remediation

Why It Matters

The core goal is to remediate exposed employee information within your Snowflake environment, securing sensitive HR data before it leads to regulatory violations or data breaches. Fixing employee data exposures in Snowflake is critical for organizations subject to GDPR, as it helps you protect personal data and avoid substantial fines—mitigating the risk of unauthorized access to sensitive employee information.

Primary Risk: Data exposure of sensitive employee information

Relevant Regulation: GDPR Data Protection Regulation

Effective remediation provides immediate security improvements, ensuring compliance with data protection laws and maintaining employee trust.

Prerequisites

Permissions & Roles

Snowflake ACCOUNTADMIN or SECURITYADMIN role
MODIFY privileges on affected databases/schemas
Ability to create and manage access policies

External Tools

Snowflake CLI or SnowSQL
Cyera DSPM account
API credentials for automation

Prior Setup

Snowflake account provisioned
Employee data exposures identified
Network policies configured
Backup and recovery plan in place

Introducing Cyera

Cyera is a modern Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) platform that discovers, classifies, and continuously monitors your sensitive data across cloud services. By leveraging advanced AI and Named Entity Recognition (NER) models, Cyera automatically identifies exposed employee data in Snowflake and provides intelligent remediation recommendations, ensuring you can quickly secure sensitive HR information and maintain GDPR compliance in real time.

Step-by-Step Guide

Assess exposure scope and impact

Review the exposure findings from your DSPM tool to understand which tables, schemas, and databases contain exposed employee data. Prioritize based on sensitivity level and access patterns.

SELECT * FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES WHERE TABLE_NAME LIKE '%EMPLOYEE%';

Implement immediate access controls

In the Cyera portal, navigate to Remediation → Snowflake → Apply Policy. Revoke public access and implement role-based access controls for affected tables. Create row-level security policies where appropriate.

REVOKE SELECT ON TABLE HR.EMPLOYEES FROM ROLE PUBLIC;

Apply data masking and encryption

Configure dynamic data masking for sensitive employee fields like SSNs, salaries, and personal information. Implement column-level encryption for highly sensitive data that must remain accessible to authorized users.

CREATE MASKING POLICY ssn_mask AS (val string) RETURNS string -> CASE WHEN CURRENT_ROLE() IN ('HR_ADMIN') THEN val ELSE 'XXX-XX-XXXX' END;

Establish ongoing monitoring

Set up automated monitoring through Cyera to detect new exposures and policy violations. Configure alerts for unauthorized access attempts and schedule regular compliance scans to maintain security posture.

Architecture & Workflow

Snowflake Data Cloud

Source of exposed employee data tables

Cyera AI Engine

Identifies exposures using NER and ML models

Policy Engine

Applies access controls and masking policies

Monitoring & Alerting

Continuous compliance and threat detection

Remediation Flow Summary

Identify Exposures → Apply Controls → Mask/Encrypt Data → Monitor Compliance

Best Practices & Tips

Remediation Priorities

Address public access exposures first
Focus on highly sensitive employee data
Implement principle of least privilege

Policy Implementation

Test masking policies in non-production first
Use conditional masking for different roles
Document all policy changes for audits

Common Pitfalls

Breaking application functionality with overly restrictive policies
Forgetting to secure data shares and clones
Not monitoring policy effectiveness over time

References & Further Reading

Next Steps

🛡️ Prevent: Set up proactive employee data protection 🔍 Detect: Implement continuous employee data monitoring