Best practices for database masking techniques to protect sensitive data in test environments

tech_master
Thu, 01 May 2025 09:33:25 +0000

Don’t overlook data pattern preservation. We initially used random substitution for part numbers and found that our test scenarios broke because the masked data didn’t follow our real-world patterns. For example, production part numbers follow specific formats (prefix indicating product line, middle digits for category, suffix for variant). Random masking destroyed these patterns, making tests unrealistic. We switched to format-preserving masking that maintains the structure and patterns while changing the actual values. This is especially important for fields that have business logic dependencies or validation rules.