Organizations are gradually becoming concerned regarding data security in several instances, such as collecting and retaining sensitive information and processing personal information in external environments, which include information sharing and cloud computing. Some of the commonly used solutions, however, do not provide strong and viable protection from privacy disclosures and data theft. Particularly, privacy and risk protection experts are concerned about the security and privacy of data that is used in the process of analytics and then shared externally. As such, organizations need to comply with existing and upcoming regulations for secure processing of sensitive data. From this perspective, new approaches concerning privacy-preserving computing that are clear and sustainable to business processes can present various opportunities while also assisting in finding an appropriate balance between security, privacy, and compliance.
Encrypting data, especially when at rest, is insufficient when it comes to avoiding data breaches. Ideally, data-at-rest encryption leads to a crypto boundary, an aspect that suggests that data is accessible in plaintext. When it comes to addressing plaintext, it is important to note that it is primarily needed for processing, and this boundary usually exists below the point at which a compromise can be experienced. Additionally, data-at-rest encryption does not necessarily support cases where data sharing with other organizations is done. For data to be deemed useful, it has to be accessible through plaintext within various applications since this plays a significant role in reducing encryption’s protection capability. However, a disadvantage of typical data masking techniques is that they do not largely support the protection of behavioral or transactional data. Notably, the limitations of data masking and data-at-rest have led to a gradual increase in devising new strategies for data protection, especially when advanced approaches tend to protect data with regard to where the traditional encryption and data masking techniques fail.