Azure IAAS Database Connection String and Azure SQL Connection String

Detects Azure IaaS database and Azure SQL connection string patterns containing credentials. This pattern is based on a Microsoft Purview built-in sensitive information type. Users already running Purview may prefer to enable the built-in SIT directly, or use this version as a starting point for customisation.

Type

regex

Engine

universal

Confidence

high

Confidence justification

High confidence: structurally constrained connection string format with multiple required parameters reduces false positive rates significantly. Added context gating and exclusion rules improve precision and reduce incidental matches.

Detection quality

Verified

Jurisdictions

global

Regulations

Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth)

Frameworks

CIS Controls, ISO 27001, NIST CSF, PCI-DSS, SOC 2

Data categories

credentials, security

Scope

specific

Risk rating

10

Platform compatibility

Purview: Compatible, GCP DLP: Compatible, Macie: Compatible, Zscaler: Compatible, Palo Alto: Degraded, Netskope: Unsupported

Pattern

(?i)(?:Server|Data Source)\s*=\s*[^;]+;\s*(?:Database|Initial Catalog)\s*=\s*[^;]+;\s*(?:User Id|Uid)\s*=\s*[^;]+;\s*(?:Password|Pwd)\s*=\s*[^;]+

Corroborative evidence keywords

connection string, SQL Server, Azure SQL, database, Data Source, Server, Password, connectionString, api key, api_key, apikey, access key, access token, auth token, authorization, bearer, conn str, connectionstring, cookie, credential (+43 more)

Proximity: 300 characters

Should match

• Server=myserver.database.windows.net;Database=mydb;User Id=admin;Password=P@ssw0rd123 — Azure SQL connection string
• Data Source=10.0.0.1;Initial Catalog=testdb;Uid=sa;Pwd=TestPassword123 — IaaS SQL Server connection string
• Server=tcp:myserver.database.windows.net,1433;Database=mydb;User Id=admin@myserver;Password=S3cr3tP@ss — Azure SQL with TCP prefix and port

Should not match

• Server=myserver;Database=mydb;Integrated Security=True — Windows authentication without password
• Server=myserver;Database=mydb — Connection string without credentials
• template example placeholder record identifier — Template/sample context should be excluded even when anchor words are present

Known false positives

• Documentation and tutorials containing example connection strings with placeholder credentials. Mitigation: Check for common placeholder values like P@ssw0rd, password123, and example server names.
• Application configuration files with encrypted or tokenized connection strings. Mitigation: Verify that the password field contains an actual credential rather than a key vault reference.

References

• Azure IAAS database connection string and Azure SQL connection string entity definition - Microsoft Learn