If someone downloaded a million rows of sensitive customer data from your Snowflake environment at 3 a.m., would you know?

You should.

And yet, many organizations wouldn’t—because they’re still relying on query logs, periodic audits, or blind trust in access controls to keep them safe. But in a modern data estate, policies alone aren’t enough. You need eyes on the behavior behind the access.

That’s where ALTR’s real-time alerts step in.

The Visibility Gap That Could Cost You Everything

Data governance frameworks do a lot of heavy lifting. They classify sensitive data, assign roles, mask values, and enforce policies to restrict who can access what. But even the strongest frameworks can be exploited—especially by insiders operating within their allowed boundaries.

Consider this:

• A credentialed employee queries large volumes of PCI-tagged customer data.
• An analyst performs repetitive lookups on a small data set to reverse-engineer insights they shouldn’t have.
• A contractor pulls regulated healthcare data after hours while working offsite.

Technically, none of these actions may violate policy. But they’re dangerous. And if you’re not alerted in real time, you’ll likely discover the problem days—or weeks—too late, when audit logs are finally reviewed or regulators come knocking.

By then, the damage is already done.

From Reactive to Proactive: Enter ALTR Alerts

ALTR Alerts are designed to solve this exact problem. They provide real-time visibility into who’s accessing your sensitive data, how often, and when. More importantly, they allow you to act—automatically.

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ALTR’s alerting engine integrates directly with your existing data classification and policy enforcement strategies, allowing you to monitor not just access permissions, but access behavior.

Here’s how it works.

Access Rate Alerts

Not all overexposure happens in one fell swoop. Often, it’s the slow leak—the excessive queries, the unexpected joins, the silent data scraping—that go unnoticed.

Access rate alerts flag when a user accesses more records than expected in a specific time frame. This helps you detect:

• Malicious exfiltration attempts
• Excessive or unintentional data sharing
• Scripts designed to scrape or mine datasets

You can choose your enforcement action: trigger a notification to the user and admin, or block access in real time. That level of flexibility lets you calibrate based on risk tolerance and business context.

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Time Window Alerts

The clock matters. Certain types of access are more suspicious at 2 a.m. than at 2 p.m.—especially when dealing with regulated or proprietary data.

Time window alerts monitor access outside of defined business hours or on restricted days (like weekends or holidays). They serve as a second layer of defense—guardrails that limit when sensitive data can be touched, not just by whom.

Use cases include:

• Preventing off-hours scraping or tampering
• Flagging unusual patterns that could indicate compromised credentials
• Adding an additional line of compliance control for data residency or privacy laws

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Defense in Depth: Why Alerts Multiply the Value of Your Policies

Policies are your foundation. They set the rules. But alerts enforce vigilance. Used together, they offer defense in depth—a layered strategy that strengthens your data protection posture without stifling productivity.

• Policies determine who can see what
• Alerts monitor how and when that data is accessed

When alerts are tied directly to tag or column-level policies, they serve as sentinels—watching for access patterns that may look legitimate on the surface but carry serious risk beneath.

Real-World Scenarios: What ALTR Alerts Catch That Logs Don’t

• The Overcurious Analyst: A junior employee with access to HR compensation data queries salary records across the organization under the guise of “market research.” A rate-based alert catches the abnormal query volume before sensitive data is misused.
• The After-Hours Contractor: A third-party data scientist accesses HIPAA-classified data on a Sunday. A time-based alert blocks the request and sends an alert to the DPO before any data is exposed.
• The Accidental Overshare: A developer testing queries on a staging table accidentally pulls live production data with PII tags. A policy alert notifies the team before the data is replicated elsewhere.
• The Curious Colleague: A user with legitimate access to financial reports begins exporting unusually large volumes of data from unrelated departments. An access rate alert detects the anomaly and prompts an immediate review.
• The Weekend Spike: A user typically active during weekdays suddenly accesses thousands of records on a Saturday morning. A time window alert flags the deviation from normal patterns and temporarily disables access.
• The Script in Disguise: A seemingly harmless BI tool query begins hitting a sensitive dataset every 10 seconds. A rate-based alert detects the scraping pattern and blocks the behavior before it turns into exfiltration.

Trust, Auditability, and Peace of Mind

Alerts aren’t just about stopping bad actors. They’re about building trust.

When you can prove that your organization not only governs who has access, but monitors how and when that access occurs, you strengthen your posture in the eyes of auditors, regulators, and customers alike.

Real-time alerts create an audit trail of intent—not just activity. And that matters more than ever in today’s environment of escalating threats and tightening regulations.

Wrapping Up

Data security isn’t just about locking the door. It’s about knowing who walked through it, what they did, and whether their behavior makes sense.

Policies give you structure. But alerts give you context.

And in an age where breaches often come from the inside, that context is everything.

Don’t wait until the quarterly audit to spot red flags. Turn on alerts today—and stay ahead of the risk curve.