When Would My Company Need Data Masking?

When businesses handle sensitive information, it’s important that they take the necessary measures to protect this data from external threats or data breaches. Sensitive information can include private health records, financial statements, social security numbers, addresses, as well as phone numbers and passwords. There are ways for businesses to mask data to prevent it from being accessed by unauthorized users. There’s data masking and encryption. Each method serves different purposes and is best used in different settings. Both techniques allow for sensitive data to be replaced or censored in order to prevent easy access. Learn more about data masking techniques and why your company might need to use them.

What is data masking?

Data masking is a security technique that involves creating an inauthentic version of data in order to protect sensitive information. The original data is copied and a fake version is created. The replica does not have any identifiable information and doesn’t offer any of the original value. This helps organizations minimize issues with data security in a non-production environment. Masking data still allows it to retain the same characteristics but it hides all of the information for data anonymization. For example, a business might hide the employee ID and full name of its employees and create a replica with a common first name and last name to replace these identifiable details.

When would my company need data masking?

Now that more industries are modernizing their processes, data is often stored using technology that can be exposed to third parties and other external threats. That’s why it’s important for companies to implement data masking techniques in order to prevent improper usage of information. For example, a health care company that wants to utilize a third-party vendor might want to pass along information to the vendor. But they cannot share health information with identifiable information. Data masking is a great way to prevent the data from being compromised in the event of a breach. Organizations need to protect their data, as it’s one of the most important assets regardless of the industry. Having open access can put customers or clients in danger of fraud or theft.

What are some of the most common methods of data masking?

There are several methods for data masking. There’s substitution, shuffling, averaging, redaction, and nulling, as well as format-preserving encryption. Substitution allows for the original data to be replaced with inauthentic value. Meanwhile, shuffling is a data masking process where values are vertically rearranged to mask data. Averaging changes all of the numerical values with an average. Redaction and nulling involve replacing sensitive information with a numerical or generic value like “X” and the approach is most common for masking credit card numbers or phone numbers.

Are there rules to data masking?

If you’re interested in using masking techniques for your business, then you may want to follow some of these rules. Ensure that the data masking is not reversible. When unauthorized users get their hands on masked information that is reversible, they can easily transform it back to authentic data. Make sure that the masking technique does not affect the integrity of the database. For example, every instance of a credit card number should be scrambled identically to avoid affecting the referential integrity of the information. The masking method should also never change the nature of the data. The point is to protect the information from unauthorized access, not tamper with the original data.

Now that you’re aware of the most common data masking methods and how they’re used in other businesses, perhaps you’re aware of whether your organization needs to implement these techniques.