Abstract

Data safety is always an important topic. Everybody knows the Cybersecurity Incident from Equifax. Until October 2, 2017, there are 2.5 million U.S. consumers potentially impacted. How to protect specified columns such as the personal identifiable information (PII) in a data file is becoming increasingly important in industries. Here are the four solutions for different levels of confidential information to mask columns or variables in a data file. They are generalized to be used on any data step on any columns. But they have different advantages and disadvantages, user can choose the one based on your appetite.

Key words:  Data Safety, Encrypt, Confidential Columns, Data File, SAS MD5, SHA256, User Defined Method