Patent ID: 8069153

Claim:
A system for securing customer data in a multi-tenant environment, the system comprising: one or more processors configured to: monitor query plans of a multi-tenant database system to determine whether any query plans may be at least one of: a query plan that should never occur in a multi-tenant database system or a query plan that should only occur in a small number of identified circumstances in a multi-tenant database system; and take an action to secure customer data in the multi-tenant environment in the event that a query plan is determined to be suspect, wherein determining whether the query plan is suspect includes determining whether the query plan satisfies one or more first criteria, wherein the first criteria includes at least one of: a query plan that should never occur in a multi-tenant database system or a query plan that should only occur in a small number of identified circumstances in a multi-tenant database system; determine whether the suspect query plan satisfies one or more second criteria, the second criteria including whether the suspect query plan is a member of an exception class of suspect query plans; permit the suspect query plan to be executed without raising an alert when the suspect query plan is found to satisfy the second criteria; and raise an alert when the suspect query plan does not satisfy the second criteria.