[Term of the Day]: Dynamic data masking (DDM)

Term of the Day

"Dynamic Data Masking"

Definition — What is Dynamic Data Masking (DDM)?

Dynamic data masking (DDM) or data redaction is a process that aims at obscuring or blocking out data that is personally identifiable or sensitive or confidential.

DDM can be installed on the database to hide sensitive information of queries over the database, while the information in the database is not changed. It does this as it’s being retrieved from a database; it leaves the data in the database unchanged for authorized access, but for people accessing sensitive data who are not authorized to see it masking or replaced by X’s or zeros or some other obscuring character.

So, data masking or redaction is transparent to the application users because it preserves the original data type and formatting and the query results. It can be applied to databases such as data warehouses or some other application database, like an ERP system or human resources system for example.