Effortless Data Compliance for TiDB

Introduction

TiDB is a high-performance, distributed SQL database designed to support hybrid transactional and analytical processing (HTAP). Built for scalability and real-time analytics, TiDB is used across SaaS, e-commerce, and financial platforms where data compliance is increasingly critical.

While TiDB offers foundational security features such as access control and encryption, organizations operating under GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI DSS often face challenges automating the full spectrum of compliance tasks.

DataSunrise helps eliminate this friction by adding an effortless layer of masking, discovery, auditing, and reporting—without modifying your TiDB setup.

TiDB's Native Data Compliance Features

TiDB provides foundational tools that, when combined, help establish a baseline for compliance, including:

• Role-based access control (RBAC) using MySQL-compatible GRANT statements
• Audit logging (in Enterprise Edition) with support for event filtering and redaction
• TLS encryption for securing data in transit
• Password policies and privilege visibility via system tables

While these features offer some control over who can access data and how it’s queried, they remain largely manual, rule-based, and unaware of context. Most critically, however, they do not address real-time policy enforcement, dynamic data masking, or automated classification of sensitive content.

For example, here’s how TiDB handles user permissions with RBAC. It allows assigning read-only or role-scoped access, but cannot apply masking or trigger alerts based on the context of the session or query intent:

Code Example:

-- Create a read-only role and grant access to a user
CREATE ROLE readonly_user;
GRANT SELECT ON sales_data.* TO readonly_user;
GRANT readonly_user TO 'julia'@'%';
SET DEFAULT ROLE readonly_user TO 'julia'@'%';

Compliance Challenges in TiDB

While this setup defines access boundaries, it doesn’t evaluate how the data is used, what is being queried, or why a user should—or should not—see sensitive values. It’s an effective starting point, but far from sufficient for modern compliance expectations.

The limitations become more apparent when evaluated through a compliance lens:

• ❌ No dynamic masking — All query results return raw values, regardless of user role. This creates exposure risk in shared environments (e.g., when analysts or support staff access customer tables). Without masking, even a valid SELECT query can become a compliance violation if sensitive data is viewed by the wrong person.

• ❌ No automated discovery — PII must be identified manually using custom SQL against INFORMATION_SCHEMA. In large or evolving schemas, this leads to missed fields and audit gaps. For example, if a developer adds a new column like alt_phone_number and no one flags it, it may be unintentionally exposed or excluded from masking rules.

• ✅ Audit logging (Enterprise-only) — Logging is not available in Community Edition, and even in Enterprise, it requires custom setup and lacks real-time correlation. This means suspicious activity (e.g., multiple large data exports by the same user) might be logged—but not noticed until much later, when damage is already done.

• ❌ No native compliance reporting — TiDB does not offer built-in reporting tools to track who accessed what data, how masking policies were enforced, or how discovery scans were maintained. Compliance teams must build their own tooling or extract data manually, which slows down audits and increases the risk of errors.

• ❌ No behavior-based alerts — There’s no native mechanism for detecting or responding to abnormal patterns. For example, if a junior analyst suddenly starts querying the full users table at 2:00 AM, TiDB will allow it silently. Without alerting integrations (Slack, webhook, email), incidents go unnoticed until after a breach or audit.

As a result, these challenges make TiDB a strong engine for processing sensitive data—but not for governing it at scale. That’s where DataSunrise closes the gap.

Unified Policy Automation for TiDB Environments

DataSunrise, a database security and compliance platform, brings together auditing, masking, discovery, and threat detection under a unified framework built for modern platforms like TiDB. Its zero-touch deployment model allows teams to connect TiDB instances, apply the relevant compliance frameworks, and start enforcing policies—without writing code or altering database configurations.

At the core of this framework is adaptive intelligence, which continuously analyzes TiDB activity to recognize anomalies, detect emerging threats, and automatically update rule enforcement as behavior changes over time.

With predefined enterprise-grade policies, organizations can apply security best practices with just a few clicks. Templates are designed to match industry standards, minimizing manual rule creation.

As a result, this approach delivers:

• Faster compliance outcomes, reducing the time needed to reach audit readiness
• Reduced exposure to database risks such as policy violations or suspicious access attempts
• Improved operational efficiency by eliminating repetitive compliance overhead for technical teams

Together, these capabilities enable organizations to shift from manual, reactive compliance to a fully automated posture. Let’s take a closer look at how DataSunrise puts this into action for TiDB.

How DataSunrise Simplifies Compliance for TiDB

DataSunrise works as a proxy between your applications and TiDB. It provides real-time data protection and visibility with minimal configuration.

1. Discover Sensitive Data

DataSunrise scans your TiDB environment to automatically locate sensitive fields such as names, addresses, credit card numbers, and emails. Additionally, it uses built-in pattern libraries and dictionaries to classify columns.

• Tag columns by sensitivity
• Generate detailed discovery reports
• Feed discovery results into audit/masking policies

2. Apply Dynamic Masking

With a few clicks, you can apply masking rules to redact or substitute sensitive fields in query results. No changes to TiDB schema or applications are needed.

• Mask data by user, IP, schema, or role
• Choose from nulling, partial, regex, or random replacement
• Preview and deploy rules via a web interface

3. Capture Full Audit Trails

DataSunrise logs every query—including bind variables, tables accessed, and affected rows. It enriches each event with metadata like user identity, host, and time.

• Capture and store full query history
• Export logs to PDF, CSV, or JSON
• Integrate with SIEM or compliance dashboards

4. Generate Reports Automatically

Additionally, compliance teams can schedule reports with predefined formats for regulations like SOX, HIPAA, or GDPR.

• Filter by time range, user, or object
• Include masking coverage, discovery results, and violations
• Export reports or automate delivery via email or webhook

TiDB + DataSunrise: A Seamless Pair

Summary

TiDB gives you scale and speed. DataSunrise adds the compliance engine—effortlessly.

Whether you’re addressing audit trails, GDPR classifications, or internal data governance policies, DataSunrise ensures that securing and monitoring TiDB environments becomes seamless and sustainable.