Businesses store a vast amount of personal information, including sensitive customer data, which must be protected against cyber attacks that could be catastrophic for the company. One of the best ways to do prevent this from happening, is to utilize data masking in the SAP system, which covers either a portion or all of the data. Types of data that can be masked include everything from birth dates, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and tax identification numbers. Below, we will review the different SAP data masking techniques and how businesses can implement them into their system to increase security.
What Is SAP Data Masking?
Data masking can be described as an SAP security measure that involves shuffling, obscuring, or encrypting data, which prevents it from being accessed or deciphered without the correct authorization. Masking sensitive data such as social security numbers, financial information, or bank account information in a business’s SAP system reduces unnecessary exposure to cyber threats by enhancing overall security. This is done by creating a fake version of organizational data stored by an enterprise. The process of data masking involves altering the values of data while maintaining the format. The end goal is to produce a version of data that cannot be reverse-engineered or deciphered. There are multiple ways in which this can be done, such as word substitution, character shuffling, or encryption.
Why Is SAP Data Masking Important?
Data masking is becoming more popular in enterprises storing sensitive data mainly because of its multiple advantages to businesses. First, it solves potentially critical threats, including data exfiltration, account compromise, insider threats, and data loss. It also reduces the risks associated with adopting the cloud and makes data useless for attackers launching cyber attacks. In addition, data masking facilitates data sharing between those with authorization, including developers and testers, without increasing the risk of exposing any data. Finally, data masking allows for data sanitization, which replaces old values with values that have been masked when files are deleted.
Data Masking Techniques
Several different techniques can be used to mask the data stored by an enterprise. Below, we will go through some of the most popular options IT professionals use to protect data stored within the SAP system.
Data Encryption
Data encryption is an extreme method of protecting the information stored by a business, as it is deemed worthless unless the personnel in possession of the data has access to the decryption key. This is a form of data masking where an encryption algorithm masks the sensitive information. Data encryption is the most secure way to protect your data from cyber-attacks. However, it is one of the more complex ways to conceal data and requires powerful technology to implement it into your SAP system. It also requires mechanisms to share and manage different encryption keys.
Data Scrambling
Data scrambling refers to the reorganization of the data characters into random orders. An example would be changing an ID number such as 12345 — stored in the production database — to 34215, stored in a test database. This is a much simpler way to mask data; however, it can’t be applied to every data type and, therefore, is not a viable option for every business.
Nulling Out
Nulling out is one of the simpler methods of data masking that essentially makes the data unviewable when viewed by someone without the appropriate authorization. The data will simply show as missing or “null,” reducing the chance of it ending up in the wrong hands.
Value Variance
In this type of data masking, the original values of data are replaced by a function. An example would be the difference between the highest and lowest values in a particular series. When customers purchase several products, the purchase price is replaced with a range between the lowest and highest price that was paid. This allows the data of the purchase to be stored without actually showing the original data.
Data Substitution
Data substitution refers to the swapping of data values with fake values. An example of this would be replacing the names of customers with fake names, protecting the identity of the customers, and reducing the impact of a data leak if it were to occur.
The Power of SAP Data Masking
Ensuring data is securely stored within an enterprise is crucial in reducing the risk of cyber-attacks and data leaks. This helps to protect the integrity of the business and build trust with customers, who will be much more likely to continue using your company if they feel like they can trust that their data is safely stored in your system.
While Data Masking is one component of securing your data, it is essential to have a comprehensive SAP security strategy to protect critical business processes, sensitive data, and intellectual property from cyber threats, ensuring business continuity, regulatory compliance, and maintaining stakeholder trust.
