When working in non-production environments such as testing and development, it’s crucial to ensure that Personally Identifiable Information (PII) is adequately protected. These environments often replicate production systems but may lack the same security controls, making them vulnerable to data breaches. If your organization is like most, you are subject to data privacy regulations that govern the use and storage of PII data across your databases and network. Having a robust tool to discover and protect PII across your databases is critical.

The Problem: Finding Non-Compliant PII

Non-production environments often utilize data from various sources. But, manually handling PII discovery and classification for a complex and growing database can result in oversight leading to non-compliance with data privacy regulations like GDPR.

Example:

Each month, your non-production environment is refreshed with the latest production data. Even if you know where your sensitive data resides, the complexity and volume of data, especially with frequent refreshes from production environments, is such that it can lead to overlooked PII. Running scans to identify PII and creating masking scripts is labor-intensive and error-prone, increasing the risk of non-compliance.

The Problem: Database-Agnostic Scanning

Many organizations use multiple databases across their systems, and the native data discovery and masking solutions for each database often have compatibility issues. Discovery PII across all your databases can be challenging.

Example:

Suppose your organization uses Oracle databases for financial transactions and MS SQL Server for customer relationship management. When implementing a new security policy, you need to ensure that PII in both databases is correctly masked. The process of manually tracking and masking PII across Oracle and MS SQL Server can be cumbersome and prone to errors, potentially leading to security lapses.

#2. Cross-Database Integration

A PII data discovery software that seamlessly integrates with all types of databases, data sources and data formats- across your enterprise.

The Problem: Anonymizing PII for testing & Dev

Your PII-containing data is critical for accurate testing, development, and analytics. However; it is dangerous to move this data out of secure environments. How do you leverage your data, while protecting your PII? Static data masking is one such option, especially if you select a platform that preserves your data integrity and has referential integrity.

Example:

Your development team is working on a new customer service application that requires realistic data for testing. The data needs to mimic real user interactions to be useful, but exposing actual customer details is not an option. Manually masking data while preserving its usability, such as maintaining relationships between different data fields, is complex and time-consuming.

#3. Automated Data Masking

A test data management platform that has both PII Data Discovery and Static Data Masking to set up automated masking of sensitive data for use in development, testing, analytics, and other use cases.

The Problem: Filtering PII based on different regulations

Ensuring adherence to various data protection regulations can be challenging and error-prone when done manually due to the complexity and variability of regulations.

Example:

Your company is developing a health app that handles user medical records, requiring compliance with HIPAA. Ensuring that all personal health information (PHI) is stored in secure locations and protected, in compliance with these regulations can be challenging. Without a PII Discovery tool, you have to manually search databases, checking each data element, which is time-consuming and error-prone.

#4. Built-in Compliance Filters

PII data discovery software should have pre-configured compliance filters that automatically apply the rules of each regulation and flags non-compliant data.

The Problem: System load and Slowdown

Scanning large databases for PII can significantly slow down operations, impacting testing and development efficiency.

Example:

Imagine your team is preparing for a major update to a CRM system with millions of customer records. To comply with data protection regulations, you need to scan the entire dataset for PII and mask it before testing. If the scanning tool is slow, it can delay the testing phase, push back the release schedule, and disrupt your development process, affecting overall project timelines and delivery.

#5. High-Speed Data Discovery

A PII data discovery software that scans large databases quickly and efficiently, ensuring that PII is identified promptly without hindering your workflow.

The Problem: Manual Cataloging

Tracking where PII resides across multiple data sources and systems can be complex and error-prone when done manually.

Example:

Imagine your company is a financial institution with customer data across multiple systems – Microsoft SQL Server for transactional records, Oracle for historical loan data, and Core Banking systems for account information. Manually cataloging PII within each system is not only time-consuming but laborious and highly susceptible to errors

#6. Accurate PII Cataloging

PII data discovery software that can accurately and automatically catalog PII across all data sources, giving you visibility into where sensitive information resides.

The Problem:Generating compliance reports

Generating detailed logs and records for audits is crucial but can be labor-intensive and prone to errors if done manually.

Example:

Preparing for a data protection audit requires detailed records of data access and modifications over the past year. Manually compiling these logs from various sources can be time-consuming and lead to inaccuracies, potentially causing compliance issues.

#7. Audit ready reporting

PII data discovery software should offer audit-ready logs and records with accurate and comprehensive reporting features.

Conclusion

Choosing the right PII data discovery software for non-production environments is crucial for safeguarding sensitive information and ensuring seamless testing processes. Effective PII Data Discovery Tools offer continuous compliance with data protection regulations, even across multiple large databases of sensitive data, while also maintaining data usability and integrity.

While there are many options for data discovery software in the market, Accutive Data Discovery and Data Masking (ADM) stands out because of its seamless transition from enterprise-wide data discovery to advanced data masking in mere minutes. There is a reason why Gartner Peer Insights ranks ADM #1 – organizations that choose ADM ensure continuous compliance with PII Data Discovery and empower their DevOps and SecDevOps teams with usable test data.

Learn more about Accutive Data Discovery here

The post 7 features to look for in a PII Data Discovery Software: A guide for infosec and devops Professionals first appeared on Accutive Security.

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