Data masking is a method of creating a structurally similar but inauthentic version of an organization’s data. The purpose is to protect the actual data while having a functional substitute for occasions when the real data is not required.

Although most organizations have stringent security controls in place to protect production data in storage or in business use, sometimes that same data has been used for operations that are less secure. The issue is often compounded if these operations are outsourced and the organization has less control over the environment. In the wake of compliance legislation, most organizations are no longer comfortable exposing real data unnecessarily.