Data masking use cases span GenAI and employee training, as well as data testing, compliance, security, sharing, governance, analytics, and migration.
Why do organizations need data masking?
Critical for organizations striving for robust data security and compliance, data masking protects sensitive information by replacing real data with obfuscated values – yet preserving data usability for non-production purposes. This is particularly valuable in development and testing environments where realistic data is needed. But exposing real Personally Identifiable Information (PII) is prohibited by privacy regulations, like Europe’s GDPR, California’s CPRA, and the US’s HIPAA.
Data masking safeguards organizations from data breaches and insider threats. Even if unauthorized access occurs, properly masked data is useless to attackers. This mitigates the potential for identity theft or financial fraud and is especially important for compliance with data privacy laws which mandate strong data protection measures.
Data masking tools facilitate collaboration and improve development and testing efficiency in numerous use cases, described below. They also help organizations comply with data residency requirements by allowing them to store masked data copies in specific geographic locations.
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How data masking works
Data masking software manipulates sensitive data within databases or files to create disguised versions – protecting real information while maintaining functionality for non-critical uses like testing, analytics, or sharing. There are several data masking methods in use today, notably:
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Scrambling
Scrambling is a data masking technique that randomly rearranges characters or numbers to obfuscate original content. By way of example, an invoice number 4836327 in a production environment could be scrambled to read 7236384 in a different environment. While this data masking technique is simple to implement for certain data types, it’s not suitable for all data and is considered less secure than other techniques.
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Nullifying
Data nullifying exchanges actual data values for a null value in a given data column, preventing unauthorized users from viewing the values. Although this technique is easily implemented, nullified data values have less integrity and usability, which can be problematic in development and testing environments.
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Date aging
Date aging raises or lowers a date field within a specific date range, based on pre-defined parameters. For example, increasing the “date of birth” field by 365 days would transform the date 23-12-2024 to 23-12-2025.
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Shuffling
Shuffling randomly orders characters or numbers within a particular data column. One key issue with data shuffling is that users with access to the shuffling algorithm could potentially reverse engineer the process, potentially placing sensitive data at risk.
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Substitution
Substitution replaces original data values with different values. Substitution is considered a highly effective data masking technique since it retains the original nature and structure of the data and can also be applied to multiple types of datasets.
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Variance
Generally applied to transactional data, variance is a statistical measure that indicates the dispersion of a set of numbers. It shows how much the values in a dataset differ from the average (mean) of the dataset. For example, employee salaries could be sorted and displayed to show the variance between the highest- and lowest-paid employees, without revealing the actual salaries themselves.
Top data masking use cases for the enterprise
Here are the top data masking use cases enterprises are looking at this year:
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Developing generative AI models
With data masking, developers can train generative AI models on trusted and compliant GenAI data that’s virtually bias-free.
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Enabling employee training
Organizations use masked data to train employees on real-world scenarios without risk. Datasets containing masked customer information can be used for security awareness programs, customer service simulations, and more.
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Safeguarding test data
Test data masking enables the creation of realistic test environments without ever exposing real customer information.
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Complying with data privacy laws
With PII masking, you can better adhere to regulations and avoid paying hefty fines for non-compliance. And with structured and unstructured data masking, you can protect non-textual PII like driver’s license photos and sensitive information in PDFs.
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Enhancing data security
The most obvious data masking use case is simply protecting sensitive data from breaches or unauthorized access. Data masking renders Social Security Numbers, credit card details, passwords, and other information unreadable and unusable in case of a security incident.
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Facilitating data sharing
Data masking enables the safe sharing of anonymized data for research or analytics without compromising privacy. It allows for collaboration with external parties while protecting PII and other sensitive data.
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Enforcing data governance
Masking data helps control access to sensitive data by masking it dynamically for users with limited permissions – ensuring only authorized personnel can view the original data.
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Data analytics
Data masking enables a privacy-centric approach to data analytics. Stakeholders can mask customer data while still allowing valuable insights to be extracted for marketing campaigns or product development.
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Facilitating data migration
Organizations can mask data while moving it between systems or environments. This extra layer of protection during data migration is especially relevant for cloud-based storage solutions.
Entity-based data masking in any case
Entity-based data masking technology lets you discover and obfuscate sensitive data, while still retaining its usefulness in a wide variety of use cases. Advanced data masking techniques, like dynamic data masking, forge the right balance between protecting data and maintaining its accessibility and functionality.
K2view masks data by business entities, like customers, products, or orders. This approach allows authorized users to work with the masked data of a specific entity while protecting PII and maintaining compliance. And, with sensitive data discovery tools built-in, K2view uniquely safeguards your data, enabling successful use cases every time.
Learn how K2view data masking tools can address YOUR use case.
