Environment configuration files

Name: Environment configuration files
Creator: TestPattern Community
License: https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT

Identifies environment configuration files patterns in security and access control contexts. Detects potential exposure of sensitive security information in international systems.

Type: regex
Engine: boost_regex
Confidence: medium
Confidence justification: category-aware structural regex with anchor and context constraints replaces phrase-only detection. Added context gating and exclusion rules improve precision and reduce incidental matches.
Detection quality: Mixed
Jurisdictions: global
Regulations: GDPR
Data categories: credentials, security
Scope: wide
Platform compatibility: Purview: Compatible, GCP DLP: Compatible, Macie: Compatible, Zscaler: Compatible, Palo Alto: Degraded, Netskope: Unsupported

Pattern

(?is)\b(?:environment\s+configuration|config\s+file|environment\s+variable|\.env\s+file|connection\s+string|application\s+settings|secrets\s+management|configuration\s+management|deployment\s+config|environment\s+secret)\b

Corroborative evidence keywords

environment configuration files, environment, configuration, files, software, engineering, architecture

Proximity: 300 characters

Should match

environment configuration — Primary topic phrase match
config file — Case-insensitive topic phrase match
environment variable — Alternative topic phrase match
.env file — Additional topic phrase match

Should not match

unrelated generic text without domain phrases — No relevant topic phrases present
placeholder value 12345 — Random text should not match topic-specific regex
source code config — Generic word pair from old broad template should not match

Known false positives

Authentication-related terminology in software documentation, security training materials, or system architecture descriptions without actual credentials. Mitigation: Require proximity to credential-specific patterns (API keys, connection strings, tokens) rather than general security terminology.
Code snippets and configuration examples containing credential-related keywords or placeholder values in developer documentation. Mitigation: Check for common placeholder patterns (example.com, localhost, 0000) and documentation file types to reduce false positives from technical writing.

References

https://www.cyber.gov.au/resources-business-and-government/essential-cyber-security/ism
https://www.cyber.gov.au/resources-business-and-government/essential-cyber-security/essential-eight
https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/australian-privacy-principles-guidelines/chapter-11-app-11-security-of-personal-information