How to Mask PII Data: A Guide With Examples

how to mask pii data

Data masking helps you and your organization improve data security. The term means hiding sensitive information but keeping it useful and realistic, so you can continue to develop and test with it while keeping it private. Many companies underestimate the power and importance of data masking. According to IBM Security, the average cost of a data breach has reached almost $4 million. Therefore, it’s essential to shore up your data security, no matter the size of your organization.

Data masking personally identifying information (PII) may include many techniques, such as data shuffling or data substitution, that help you make data unidentifiable. It’s an important aspect of data security that every organization should care about.

This article will help you understand what data masking is and why it matters. Further down the line, we’ll discuss a few data masking techniques—including one that isn’t recommended for most types of sensitive data. But first, let’s discuss data masking in general.

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What Is Data Security? A Complete Guide

In today’s digital-driven age, keeping business and customer data secure is more important than ever before. Not only are data breaches extremely costly, they’re also incredibly disruptive to business. Once a breach occurs, organizations have to move quickly to remedy it. Let’s hope customers won’t be too upset when they find out what’s happened.

Just how expensive are breaches? Hold your breath. A recent study revealed that the average data breach sets a company back $3.9 million. More granularly, they can expect to pay about $150 per compromised record. The price tag is even heftier in the healthcare industry, with the average breach costing upwards of $6.45 million. What’s more, U.S.-based companies feel the brunt of the pain, with the average data breaches setting them back $8.19 million.

But, when it comes to data security, financial impacts aren’t the only thing to worry about. Businesses need to be mindful of several other serious consequences, including theft of intellectual property and unhappy customers.

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What Is Cloud Data Migration? A Detailed Guide

picture of clouds for what is could data migration

Do believe the hype!

Many companies are migrating their data to the cloud. Cisco forecasts that by 2021, 94% of all workloads and compute instances will be processed by cloud data centers.

But Gartner’s 2018 hype cycle did have cloud migration falling into the “trough of disillusionment.” This could be because migrating data to the cloud isn’t easy. Organizations encounter numerous issues when trying to take advantage of the cloud’s benefits.

Organizations need to plan properly before undertaking such an endeavor. Let’s look at what you can do to minimize the issues that can plague a cloud data migration project.

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