A cloud data security team must run discovery across two stores: a managed relational database with defined tables and columns, and an object storage bucket holding scanned PDFs, images and free-text notes. Which statement about the discovery techniques best distinguishes structured from unstructured data discovery?
- AStructured discovery relies on content analysis of the raw bytes, whereas unstructured discovery reads the schema catalogue to locate sensitive fields.
- BBoth structured and unstructured discovery depend solely on file names and storage paths, so the technique is identical for the database and the bucket.
- CStructured discovery is only possible after the data has been encrypted, whereas unstructured discovery works only on plaintext held in object storage.
- DStructured discovery can query the defined schema to find sensitive columns, whereas unstructured discovery must parse and analyse the content itself because no schema describes it. Correct
Why A is wrong: This inverts the two techniques. Content analysis is what unstructured stores require because they have no schema, so attributing it to the relational database and giving the schema catalogue to the PDFs is backwards.
Why B is wrong: Names and paths are a weak hint at best and are unreliable for either store; discovery in both cases inspects the data or its schema, so claiming the techniques are identical and path-based is wrong.
Why C is wrong: Encryption state is not what separates the two techniques; discovery generally needs readable data or schema, so tying structured discovery to prior encryption misstates the mechanism.
Why D is correct: Correct: a relational store exposes tables and column metadata that discovery can query directly, while objects such as PDFs and free text have no schema, so their sensitivity must be inferred by analysing the content.