We’ve all seen it in the movies: The chief of security declares that no one could ever steal the “Famous Jewel” because it’s protected by thick glass, an impenetrable system of motion-detecting lasers, and, finally, a weight-sensitive sensor. Cut to the next scene, where a thief, dressed in sleek black, zip-lines from an open skylight, shorts the lasers, scores the glass, and with split-second timing, swaps the jewel for a replica of equal weight.

In 2023, an estimated five quintillion bytes of data will be created daily. While this data revolution is exciting, it also raises questions about data privacy. In response to that challenge, more regions, localities, and countries will implement additional data privacy laws in the coming years to ensure the safety of individuals’ data.

Imagine doing business in a bubble. You are an international company only allowed to make decisions using data collected within your country and by your business unit (BU). You also cannot share data with subsidiaries or third parties. It would be challenging to conduct day-to-day business, let alone innovate and grow. Fortunately, this isn’t the state of business today. Organizations transfer trillions of data points across borders daily.

The results are in, and Protegrity has officially been named the “Data Security Solution of the Year” by the 2021 Data Breakthrough Awards. Data Breakthrough is an independent market intelligence organization that recognizes the top companies, technologies, and products in the global data technology market today.

As the name implies, dynamic data masking actually masks data. Just as protective masks have obscured people’s smiles (and frowns) during the pandemic, this data-protection method covers sensitive data. People who shouldn’t see the data won’t see it.

Tokenization hides data. Sometimes data must be hidden in order to satisfy compliance requirements and customers’ expectations for data privacy. A form of data protection, tokenization conceals sensitive data elements so should an organization’s data be breached, the visible tokenized data—essentially a replacement for the valuable data—means nothing.A hacker will only see characters that are meaningless.

Spelling, let alone pronouncing, “anonymization” and “pseudonymization” is just the beginning. Vocabulary, however, will be the least of the challenges for organizations that ignore the business value created through the use of these data protection methods. Anonymization and pseudonymization are two ways to de-identify sensitive data, and each has a distinct purpose in the tightrope balance between fully using and fully protecting data and data privacy.

If you work in a financial organization that operates in the US, you’ll have heard the phrases Nacha and ACH. Together, these entities affect many of the transactions you’re responsible for — and dictate how, why, and when your business accesses sensitive data. But, what exactly are they? And, what’s the difference between the two? Read on to find out.

Enterprises require multiple tools for cyber defense, so network and information security staff often end up managing a patchwork of solutions, a blend of legacy and new technologies. If they find and deploy solutions that solve several business and security problems at once, they can reduce costs, logistics, and headaches while helping the business grow and innovate.