Cyral

Cyral addresses the critical security and operational challenge of managing and securing data access across diverse databases, data pipelines, and data warehouses. The platform employs a featherweight, stateless interception service, known as a data layer sidecar, which can be deployed in various environments, including cloud, on-prem, or as part of a Kubernetes service, autoscaling group, or cloud function.

This sidecar architecture allows for real-time interception of data requests without impacting performance or scalability. It defers session state management to the data layer connections themselves, enabling high-availability configurations and a fail-open design. This approach also facilitates output filtering, where read requests are passed to the data layer without delay, while their results can be blocked if the request is deemed malicious or disallowed.

Cyral's SaaS-based control plane centralizes the management of these sidecars, allowing for easy administration, security policy implementation, and threat response. The platform integrates with existing IAM tools, extending access controls to databases and data lakes, and eliminating the need for individual database accounts and credentials. It supports fine-grained authorization policies, allowing control over specific rows, columns, and objects within various data repositories.

Key operational considerations include the ability to send logs, traces, and metrics to popular SIEM, monitoring, and tracing tools, enhancing visibility and simplifying audits and forensics. Cyral also generates alerts on suspicious activity and anomalous behavior, such as full table scans or access from disreputable IP addresses. The platform's API-first design and support for infrastructure-as-code (IaC) tools enable automation and integration with DevOps workflows, ensuring that data security is maintained without disrupting operational efficiency.

However, there are limitations to consider, such as the potential for increased complexity in managing centralized dynamic access controls and the need for careful configuration to ensure that the sidecar deployment aligns with the organization's specific security and compliance requirements. Additionally, while Cyral's architecture is designed for scalability, large-scale deployments may require careful planning to ensure that the control plane and sidecars can handle the volume of data and requests efficiently.