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    Data Management:Data breach prevention with digital watermarks

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    Data Management:Data breach prevention with digital watermarks

    Last Updated:Mar 30, 2026

    Sensitive data exposed in screenshots or exported files is hard to trace back to a specific user. Data Management (DMS) adds visible and invisible watermarks to the DMS console to help you deter leaks and identify the source when a leak occurs. This feature is supported by the security team and policy team of Alibaba Cloud and provides high security and robustness.

    Prerequisites

    Before you begin, ensure that you have:

    • DMS administrator permissions

    Watermark types

    DMS supports two types of watermarks:

    Type Visibility Content Use case
    Visible watermark Displayed on the page — identical, light-colored text in a diagonal layout Username and a randomly generated four-digit ID Deterring leaks and raising security awareness
    Invisible watermark Hidden inside the data medium — not visible to viewers Tracking metadata embedded by the Alibaba Cloud security team Tracing the source of a data leak

    Visible watermarks can be applied in different contexts. For example, for corporate intranet web pages, the watermark text can be the name and ID of the current employee viewing the page. For externally provided documents, the watermark text can be the signature of an enterprise.

    Each visible watermark in DMS shows a username and a four-digit ID, as shown in the following figure. image.png

    To use invisible watermarks for data leak tracing, contact the support group for help.

    Enable digital watermarks

    1. Log on to the DMS console V5.0.

    2. In the top navigation bar, click O&M > Configuration Management.

    3. Find the configuration item for digital watermarks and click Change in the Actions column.

    4. In the Change Parameter Configuration dialog box, turn on Value.

      Note

      Turning on Value enables digital watermarks. Turning it off disables them.

    5. Click Confirm Change.

    Refresh the page after saving. The change takes about 30 seconds to take effect.

    Investigate a data leak

    If a data leak occurs and the leaked data contains visible watermarks, use the watermark text to identify the responsible user:

    1. Note the username and four-digit ID shown in the visible watermark.

    2. Go to the Users page in the DMS console and search for the user.

    For more information, see Manage users.