Preserving data protection and enabling secure content awareness in query services

A computer-implemented method, comprising:

• extracting, from electronic data, a set of one or more security attributes associated with accessing the electronic data using a security context associated with the electronic data;
• protecting at least a portion of the electronic data;
• storing the set of one or more security attributes as metadata to the electronic data, the set of one or more security attributes being used to determine access to the electronic data so that access to the electronic data is consistent with the security context;
• receiving a query and a user context of a requester making the query of a secure electronic datastore;
• running the query on the secure electronic datastore to get a set of query results, each of the set of query results including electronic data and a set of one or more security attributes associated with the electronic data;
• for each of the set of query results:
• based on the user context and the set of one or more security attributes, determining whether the requestor has a proper right to access the query result;
• responsive to a determination that the requester has the proper right to access the query result, granting access to the query result to the requester, wherein granting the access comprises unprotecting all or some of the electronic data by:
• contacting a data source that protected the all or some of the electronic data to unprotect the all or some of the electronic data;
• and
• receiving the unprotected all or some of the electronic data from the original data source;
• and
• responsive to a determination that the requester does not have the proper right to access the query result, not granting access to the query result to the requester.

An information handling system for providing query service of protected data, comprising:

• one or more processors;
• a datastore;
• and
• a non-transitory computer-readable medium or media comprising one or more sequences of instructions which, when executed by the one or more processors, the information system to perform operations comprising:
• collect electronic data and security context associated with the electronic data from a data source;
• extract, from the electronic data, a set of one or more security attributes associated with accessing the electronic data using at least the security context associated with the electronic data;
• protect at least a portion of the electronic data by requesting the data source to protect the at least a portion of the electronic data;
• receive the at least a portion of the protected electronic data;
• store the protected electronic data in the datastore;
• store in the datastore the set of one or more security attributes as metadata to the data, the set of one or more security attributes being used to determine access to the electronic data so that access to the data is consistent with the security context;
• receive a query and a user context of a requester making the query of the datastore;
• run the query to get a set of query results, each of the set of query results including the electronic data and the set of one or more security attributes associated with the electronic data;
• for each of the set of query results:
• based upon the user context and the set of one or more security attributes, determine whether the requestor has a proper right to access the query result;
• responsive to having the proper right to access the query result, grant access to the query result;
• and
• responsive to not having the proper right to access the query result, refrain to grant access to the query result.