thinQmaster Virtual testing partner Adaptive practice exams that find your weak spots and drill them. Every answer explained. From $69
Enroll

thinQmaster

Find your exam

Five questions free, before you decide.

Step 1 · choose a vendor

In one of our camps? Your practice exams come with the tuition — they are on your study page already.

Security Fundamentals & Crypto · Foundational

Data Masking

Obscuring parts of sensitive data so it remains usable for some purposes without revealing the full value.

Definition

Data masking hides sensitive elements, either statically in copied data sets or dynamically at query time based on user permissions. Common uses include showing only the last four digits of an account number or providing realistic test data to developers. Masking is typically irreversible for the viewer.

Example

A support agent sees a customer's SSN as ***-**-6789.

Exam tip

Masking hides data from viewers; tokenization replaces it with a reversible-by-vault surrogate.

Don't confuse it with

Related terms