Business and Security Policies for MCP Gateway
Business and security policies let you govern access to tools and control the data that flows through an MCP gateway.
Business Policies
Business policies control the business conditions for your MCP gateway. In most situations, you've already defined business policies for your AI agents. The business policies in the MCP gateway provide an additional level of control and unified governance.
Business policies are free-form rules. They are applied at the gateway level
Here are some examples:
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Don't process invoices over a certain value.
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Don't process invoices that came in during a specific date range.
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Don't access specific tools.
Scope and Enforcement Point for Business Policies
Understand the how business policies are applied and enforced.
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Scope: Business policies are applied to specific tools. Choose the tool when you create the business policy.
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Enforcement point: Business policies are enforced before sending a request from an AI agent to an MCP server.
Security Policies
Security policies control the data that passes through an MCP gateway, thereby reducing the risk of an AI agent or MCP server receiving data that it shouldn't.
| Security policy | Description | Scope | Enforcement point | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
PII detection |
Redact personally identifiable information (PII) data. |
Configurable; keep reading for details. |
Configurable; keep reading for details. |
Redact email addresses. Mask all but 3 characters in an email address. |
|
Tool filter |
Configure the tools to expose to AI agents. |
Applies only to a specific MCP server. |
None. |
Create a policy for CRM tools that grants access to all tools. Create a policy for ERP tools that excludes access to the tool for approving purchase orders. |
Scopes for PII Detection
When you create a PII detection security policy, you must configure its scope, which ranges from broad to narrow.
| Scope | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
|
MCP gateway |
Apply the policy to requests or responses that pass through the MCP gateway. This scope is the broadest. |
Redact all PII that passes through the MCP gateway. |
|
MCP server |
Apply the policy to requests or responses that pass through a specific MCP server. |
Redact all PII that passes through a specific MCP server. |
|
MCP tool |
Apply the policy to requests or responses for a specific tool. This scope is the narrowest. |
Redact all PII for a specific tool. |
Enforcement Points for PII Detection
When you create a PII detection security policy, you must configure its enforcement point.
| Enforcement point | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
|
Request only |
Enforce the policy before sending the request from an AI agent to an MCP server. |
Redact PII from the AI agent's request, and then send the request to the MCP server. |
|
Response only |
Enforce the policy before sending a response from the MCP server to an AI agent. |
Redact PII from the response from the MCP server, and then send the response to the AI agent. |
|
Both |
Enforce the policy at both points:
|
Redact PII from all requests and responses. |