Selective removal of protected content from web requests sent to an interactive website

An apparatus comprising:

• a network interface device to receive a web request sent to an interactive website as part of a web-based application, the web-based application being hosted from the interactive website, wherein the web request is encapsulated according to a data structure specified by the interactive website;
• and
• a processing device coupled to the network interface device, the processing device to identify a policy for protecting source data having a plurality of data elements, the policy maintained by an organization to prevent loss of sensitive information, to evaluate the web request to determine that the web request includes at least one of the plurality of data elements triggering a violation of the policy, to determine data boundaries of the web request upon receiving the web request at the processing device, wherein to determine the data boundaries of the web request comprises determining a rule used to capture the specified data structure of the web request sent to the interactive website, wherein the specified data structure specifies the data boundaries of the web request, to selectively remove data content within the data boundaries containing the at least one data element that triggered the violation, to send a modified web request to a proxy without the selectively removed data content, wherein to selectively remove the data content within the data boundaries comprises replacing the data content with replacement content based on a data type and length of the web request, to reevaluate the web request without the selectively removed data content to determine whether the data elements that triggered the violation have been successfully removed from the web request, wherein the web request without the selectively removed data content comprises a header indicating that the web request with the selectively removed data content is a resubmission for content validation, to send the web request to the interactive website upon determining that the data elements that triggered the violation have been successfully removed from the web request, wherein the header is removed from the web request, and to block the web request or allow the web request to be sent to the interactive website unmodified upon determining that the data elements that triggered the violation have not been successfully removed from the web request.

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having instructions stored thereon that when executed by a computer cause the computer to perform operations comprising:

• identifying a policy for protecting source data, having a plurality of data elements, using a data monitoring system (DMS), the policy maintained by an organization to prevent loss of sensitive information;
• evaluating, at the DMS, a web request sent to an interactive website as part of a web-based application, wherein the interactive website hosts the web-based application, wherein the web request is encapsulated according to a data structure specified by the interactive website;
• determining by the DMS that the web request includes at least one of the plurality of data elements triggering a violation of the policy, wherein determining the data boundaries of the web request comprises determining a rule used to capture the specified data structure of the web request sent to the interactive website, and wherein the specified data structure specifies the data boundaries of the web request;
• determining data boundaries of the web request upon receiving the web request at the DMS;
• selectively removing data content within the data boundaries containing the at least one data element that triggered the violation to allow the web request to be processed by the interactive website as if it were the original web request containing the at least one data element, wherein selectively removing the data content within the data boundaries comprises replacing the data content with replacement content based on a data type and length of the web request;
• reevaluating, at the DMS, the web request with the at least one data element selectively removed to determine whether the data elements that triggered the violation have been successfully removed from the web request, wherein the web request with the at least one data element selectively removed comprises a header indicating that the web request with the at least one data element selectively removed is a resubmission for content validation;
• upon determining that the data elements that triggered the violation have been successfully removed from the web request, sending the web request to the interactive website, wherein the header is removed from the web request;
• and
• upon determining that the data elements that triggered the violation have not been successfully removed from the web request, blocking the web request or allowing the web request to be sent to the interactive website unmodified.