Data masking: which one is better for your business

Are you interested in data masking to protect your company's confidential information?? Do you know how it differs from data encryption (or data encryption)? Do you know what dynamic data masking consists of??

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The first thing to be clear about is that, despite the fact that data encryption and data masking have like common objective the protection of informationThey do not act in the same way or achieve the same results. Each of them is designed to improve security levels associated with data usage, objective that can be substantially improved when both are used in a complementary way. Despite this, It is necessary to understand what their similarities and differences are in order to being able to select the one that best suits the business at all times and avoid mistakes that can be fatal.

Masking, data encryption and reversibility.

Roughly, you could say that the data masking Hide certain data items, that are replaced by fake items but of equivalent appearance., preventing users who access them from coming into contact with the real information. In using this technique, contrary to what happens with data encryption, reversibility is understood as a weakness..

This is the main difference between both methods since, when using data encryption, algorithms must necessarily be reversible Y, despite this, the masking still contains the original information, but in a different way, so reversibility would go against security.

The data masking:

• It enables you to continue working with the data, so it is very recommended for test environments, in which, as is prevalent for many different users, there is a high risk of theft or misuse.
• Secure vital pieces of information, such as those containing personal identification.
• In general, it does so through the data dissociation procedure, which removes or trims some of the most important items from the data set, as names, addresses or key information.
• The downside is that this procedure is usually irreversible. so it is not recommended when you need to work with the data in context.
• Often used to carry out research and development tasks on sensitive projects.

While the data encryption:

• It involves the conversion and transformation of the data.
• As a consequence of the application of this technique obtains a ciphertext, often unreadable, Contains mathematical symbols and algorithms.
• To restore the message, respective decryption algorithm and initial encryption key are required.
• It is widely used to protect files on a disk drive, in the local cloud, on a network or for the protection of web traffic and email.
• It is highly effective in protecting production data from unauthorized access and is often used when data is important in its current context.

From a data security point of view, the best solution is random generation masking since it is totally independent of the underlying data, even though its limitations should be clear. Both technologies, encryption and data masking are relatively easy to implement and help increase the safety of the work environment, which makes them a good investment.

Dynamic data masking

There is a niche in the field of data masking, is its dynamic mode, that is characterized by:

• Get transform data on the fly based on the privileges granted to each user.
• Is used for protect systems in real time, guaranteeing that it does not contain any reference to the original data.
• It does not encrypt the information, so it can be used in test and development environments.
• Its main limitation has to do with the associated security rules, since due to its strict application, it is possible that the same user has more or less visibility depending on the day and the level of access that has been authorized.