IBM Launches Data-Masking Technology

By Mani Raj

IBM unveiled the data-masking technology called Masking Gateway for Enterprises (Magen) on Thursday.

This technology is designed to catch protected data before it reaches the users' screens. It was developed at IBM's Haifa research laboratory and derives its name from the Hebrew word for "shield" or "protection".

Magen treats the information on the computer screen as a picture and uses optical character recognition technology to identify the parts determined confidential by the administrator. After identifying the confidential parts of the data, the software places a mask over the sensitive details which need to remain hidden without ever copying, altering or processing the data itself.

This technology was designed for the cases when information needs to be shared either internally or externally for instance to outsourcing companies or marketers. Magen provides a common solution for all applications, regardless of their operating systems and communication protocols.

The existing data-masking technologies available in the market today generally make copies of the data by masking the protected elements but this process of copying creates more data which needs to be secured. Magen is designed to eliminate this need to make copies by masking protected information on the fly.

Currently Magen is competing with data-masking software from IBM's rival companies like Oracle and DataGuise.


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