The data virtualization is fast becoming a powerful and proven technology to drive data quality and agility, as well as to comply with the security requirements, data governance and compliance. Combined with data masking, encryption and tokenization, makes the creation procedure a structurally equivalent version, but hidden from the original data, be simple and safe.. Data can be provided on request without worrying about it being lost, alter or duplicate.
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In healthcare systems, this is especially critical. Data virtualization, along with data masking, enables healthcare IT teams to develop or upgrade mission-critical applications without interruption, accelerating application development up to a 50%.
Regardless of the format in which the data is located or where it is located, a data masking virtual ensures that confidential information does not reach production systems.
Data masking and other information protection methods
There are different options to protect your business data from threats and Even though the data masking and encryption are probably the most recognized alternatives, they are not the only ones:
1. Data encryption: is a method that enables protect information assets by encrypting them to make them unreadable. It is a systematic encryption procedure that is only reversible by entering the appropriate password. And what is more:
- Is an alternative Highly recommended to protect any information on health status, the provision of health care or payment for health care that can be identified with a specific individual. This type of data is known as PHI.
- It is a method that guarantees better results than tokenization since it encrypts different parts of personal health data under different encryption keys.
- You need advanced application support to manage the different data sets and allow their viewing or updating by different audiences.
- It is It is essential to ensure that the key management service is scalable enough as to be able to manage different volumes of users. This is your weakest point.
- Properly implemented, encryption is a great tool for protect any data that can identify a specific individual and distinguish them from other people (PII information).
- It is configurable and enables effective protection of archived data or data residing in file systems without modifying business processes.
2. Data masking: data masking is a procedure that encodes data, either a full database or a subset. To know him better, need to know that:
- Masking can encode individual data columns in different ways, preserving the data type and its format, so that the masked data resembles the original.
- It is very efficient to keep aggregated values in a complete database, which enables the preservation of mean and sum values within a data set.
- Recently, the scope of data masking has expanded to include data de-identification in production cases, as well as data from non-production environments and analytical use.
- Masked data must be very realistic in order to preserve its consumer value. Therefore, it is essential that they observe the trading rules as they would the actual data.
3. Tokenización: these types of techniques are used to replace sensitive data with unresponsive placeholder tabs. For this, so-called tokens are exchanged with data stored in relational databases and files. In the health sector, some companies use this method, although:
- When it comes to data classified as PHI it is necessary to incorporate a decryption system that overloads the procedure by requiring different groupings of information to meet the needs of different types of users.
- It is necessary to have a very sophisticated token management and tracking system. to divide the data, issue and track different tokens for each audience.
Encryption vs tokenization vs data masking
Each of the three data protection methods (encryption, tokenization and data masking) has different benefits and works to fix different security issues. Therefore, Before selecting a technique, you have to understand what your possibilities are and what your limitations are.
As an example, Unlike data encryption, the result obtained after applying a technique such as data masking is not reversible. Despite this, data that has already been masked still retains its usefulness for certain purposes, something that does not happen with tokenization.
The data masking It is one of the methods that offers the most possibilities and, therefore, when opting for this security alternative, you have to know what kind of data masking choose. The most common alternatives are:
- to) Static data masking– It takes care of masking the data before use. Usually applied to non-masked production databases.
- B) Dynamic data masking: this technique achieves mask production data in real time.
- C) Data writing: this method of data masking serves for mask unstructured content like the one that comes from spreadsheets, text files or PDF documents.
Whatever the final choice for safety, attention should be paid to the potential of partnerships. One of the most recommended for the health industry is the combination of data masking and encryption techniques, that provide a very effective and appropriate shield for the distribution and exchange of medical information.
