Data masking

Data masking or data obfuscation is the process of hiding original data with random characters or data.

The main reason for applying masking to a data field is to protect data that is classified as personal identifiable data, personal sensitive data or commercially sensitive data, however the data must remain usable for the purposes of undertaking valid test cycles. It must also look real and appear consistent. It is more common to have masking applied to data that is represented outside of a corporate production system. In other words where data is needed for the purpose of application development, building program extensions and conducting various test cycles. It is common practice in enterprise computing to take data from the production systems to fill the data component, required for these non-production environments. However the practice is not always restricted to non-production environments. In some organizations, data that appears on terminal screens to call centre operators may have masking dynamically applied based on user security permissions. (e.g.: Preventing call centre operators from viewing Credit Card Numbers in billing systems)