We at GRT Corporation were very pleased to be part of Tech-Security Conference 2011 in Washington DC on September 15th. And we would like to thank once again everyone who visited our booth or attended our presentation on Data Masking.

The sheer volume of data is growing enormously – according to IBM, it is doubling every eleven hours. And as data grows, so does the risks of data leakage. Data can be captured by intruders, using phishing and other methods. Much data is leaked inadvertently, due to sheer carelessness or errors in using technology. But sensitive data is also at risk from deliberate leakage from inside, motivated by greed, ideology, or disgruntlement.

Data Masking is an elegant and highly effective technique for protecting sensitive data during testing, development, and similar activities by replacing it with valid but harmless alias data. (The use of X's or # symbols in place of credit card numbers is a familiar example of Data Masking.)

The three steps in Data Masking are discovery – finding out what data you actually have, and where it is – the masking process itself, and subsetting, or minimizing the amount of data at risk of exposure.

Data Masking is an integral part of effectively safeguarding your sensitive data.