Education

Trust is fundamental to the relationship between student and educational institution – the student gives personal and financial information to the educational institution, trusting that this information will be secured. Testing applications with real student or employee data compromises information security by risking theft from insiders; yet, realistic data is required to ensure these applications function properly. Using Camouflage to create realistic data for use in these non-production environments is the solution.

Information security within the education sector involves a variety of considerations: SSNs and other national identifiers, credit card and other payment information, personal information in student and employee records, and information belonging to minors.  Every organizational privacy policy claims to safeguard customer information, yet many companies put themselves at risk by not protecting this information during application development and testing. And organizations that handle credit card numbers, PCI DSS requirement 6.3.4 is very clear: “production data are not [to be] used for testing or development”. The most appropriate way to protect against inside theft by developers and testers is to use data masking to create realistic data for use in these non-production environments.

Privacy compromises by educational institutions have a devastating impact on trust and reputation – no CEO, CIO, or CISO wants to have a breach of PHI on their watch, and no information security manager or DBA wants to become a scapegoat. Data breaches at educational institutions make great news stories which usually require terminations and media statements that waste time and energy, and often have no noticeable impact in restoring patient trust. Expensive lawsuits are inevitable.

Using Camouflage to create realistic data will protect against data theft.

• Eliminate the use of credit card numbers in testing and development.
• Create and test systems to process student information and HR data.
• Create data for analysis while limiting access by “need-to-know”
• Test system interoperability.
• Facilitate data sharing by using Camouflage mask account numbers.