In my previous posts, I explained about the Challenges in Production Cloning. One of the major challenges in the Production Cloning approach is Data Security. This post will focus on the solution for Data Security, Data Masking.
As already explained, Data Masking is the process of masking the sensitive fields from the complete data set. The whole objective of data masking is to ensure that no sensitive data is leaked into non-production regions like the Dev and Testing regions.
What are the sensitive fields that needs to be masked? That basically depends on the project needs. But some of the generic fields that need to be masked are:
- Personal information like First names, Last Names, Email IDs, DOB, Phone & Fax numbers, SSN Numbers, National Insurance Numbers, Other national unique identifiers.
- In Banking, Financial Services & Insurance industry - Bank Balances, Account numbers, Credit card numbers, Policy numbers, etc.
- In Healthcare industry - PHI attributes like Medical record numbers, Member IDs, etc.
This list is by no means exhaustive, but will give a fair idea of how many fields are sensitive in nature that needs to be handled with care. Any lapse in masking any of these fields might have a big impact on the Organization as a whole.
Challenges in Data Masking
