The Basics of Dynamic Data Masking - Step 1 of the Stairway to Dynamic Data Masking

  • Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Basics of Dynamic Data Masking - Step 1 of the Stairway to Dynamic Data Masking

  • It's a good first step. That could help with some of those "need to know" requirements we have in the healthcare industry.

  • What happens if I use a masked field as part of an equation like MyInt * 10?

  • Thank you for the great explanation of a nice new feature! I would have thought if you setup the SSN with a "000000000" mask, the data result would have been "000000000", but the result examples are showing "XXXX". If you have a UI with a textbox control that requires only digits, it could cause a validation error on that control.

  • Good article. Would be a great part of a session on new features of 2016.

    Thomas

    Thomas LeBlanc, MVP Data Platform Consultant

  • MarkWilliamSanders (3/15/2016)


    What happens if I use a masked field as part of an equation like MyInt * 10?

    More testing and pieces coming, but the short answer is the computed column is masked.

  • eric 6533 (3/15/2016)


    Thank you for the great explanation of a nice new feature! I would have thought if you setup the SSN with a "000000000" mask, the data result would have been "000000000", but the result examples are showing "XXXX". If you have a UI with a textbox control that requires only digits, it could cause a validation error on that control.

    That's interesting. I hadn't thought of this, but I haven't seen SSN stored as a number in most places. It's seen as a character value only taking numeric entries. However, I bet you are correct that this would cause an error.

  • Thanks for the article. My questions is what is the benefitof data masking particularly the way it is implemented in sql server?

    For example, masked SSN column will display XXX. How it is betterthan not showing column value at all?

    You can use column level privilege to hide SSN. Sorry, I don’tsee any value using data masking this way.
    Data masking would be useful if it able to  hide a real PII data but, keeps its datatype  and value format the same. In thiscase it would be useful for developers, testers. But, not so much for end user.

    What are the objectives using data masking?

  • The objective is that your end users see masked data. That's what you do. You can't easily do this without code changes, and it often isn't consistent. A user that gets masked data in your ERP app won't get masked data with the credentials connecting from Excel. This is a developer programming feature that allows you to mask data from some users.

    A column level privilege is all or nothing.  That doesn't allow me to display  xxx4444 to a customer service rep that uses that as a part of identity verification.

  • MarkWilliamSanders - Tuesday, March 15, 2016 6:41 AM

    What happens if I use a masked field as part of an equation like MyInt * 10?

    Thanks for your excellent question! It's an especially good question regarding any code or testing done against masked data.

    I got 0 using Steve's example code from the article as a starting point.

    execute as user = 'mytest'
    select [MySSN] + 10
      ,[MyName]
      ,[MyEmail]
      ,[MyInt] 
    from [dbo].[MyTable]
    go

    - webrunner

    -------------------
    A SQL query walks into a bar and sees two tables. He walks up to them and asks, "Can I join you?"
    Ref.: http://tkyte.blogspot.com/2009/02/sql-joke.html

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