In this digital age, the threats against an organization’s data are massive and the consequences of a breach are extremely devastating for a business. So it has become important to consider various factors when it comes to secure databases.

Our world is on a huge risk of data theft and a few months ago, Facebook data breach news proved this. One interesting fact is that almost 80% of the confidential information in a business organization resides in a non-production environment that is used by the testers, developers and other professionals. Just a single and small breach can damage the reputation of company in the market.

Giant tech companies like Facebook has become the poster child of data misuse. If the organization is small, then such problems can be tackled but when it comes to organizations that hold the keys to a huge amount of data creates huge risk.

It is no surprise that safeguarding confidential business and customer information has become more important than ever. Companies are more focusing on product development and neglecting privacy issues. A famous movement DevSecOps are helping to raise an issue like sensitive data security. But more than that, it is very important to ensure that data security and privacy always stay at top of the mind.

How Data Masking is related to the Security of a Business Organization?

The business organization must implement security controls through their normal software testing tools so that only certain authorized individuals can access particular data. We are discussing some effective data masking strategies for business organizations. By following these techniques, organizations can make their “data securing strategy” more practical and effective:

• Try to maintain integrity: There must be consistently masked data- even for the data derived from multiple uniform sources, so that relationship between values is preserved after the data is transformed.
• Masked data must be delivered quickly: Although the data is constantly changing and the makeup of non-production takes some time, the companies need to continuously mask and deliver the masked data.
• An End-to-end approach is necessary: Simply applying masking strategies is not enough! Company should make sure to look for the end to end approach too to identify the sensitive data and their accessibility to their clients.

Data Masking and Security

Few reasons that enterprise businesses should use data masking:

1. To protect sensitive data from third party vendors: The sharing of information with third-party is mandatory but certain data must be kept confidential.
2. The error of Operator: Big organizations trust their insiders to make good decisions, but data theft is often a result of operator error and businesses can safeguard themselves with data masking.

The Indian lab of IBM has brought out a new solution to protect against theft of sensitive data from call centres. They have developed a technology named AudioZapper for the solution in the global marketplace that addressed complete security concerns of a call center. IBM Solutions offers required protection of confidential data such as credit card numbers, PIN, and other social security numbers from getting into wrong hands.

You may like to get more information on Protect confidential data with Static Data Masking by CA Technologies 

Availability of Data masking software

There are some effective data masking software which are available in the market that gives businesses everything they need to continuously protect sensitive information. They provide a reliable masking solution with a variety of predefined algorithms. With a single software solution, you get various services like creating masking data and then efficiently delivering to its concerned users. The best thing about this software is they deliver amazing services in affordable charges.