Data masking or data obfuscation is the process of hiding original data with modified content (characters or other data.) The main reason for applying masking to a data field is to protect data that is classified as personally identifiable information, sensitive personal data, or commercially sensitive data. However, the data must remain usable for the purposes of undertaking valid test cycles. It must also look real and appear consistent. It is more common to have masking applied to data that is represented outside of a corporate production system. In other words, where data is needed for the purpose of application development, building program extensions and conducting various test cycles. It is common practice in enterprise computing to take data from the production systems to fill the