System and method for universal structure preserving data masking

A data processing system for masking a plurality of discrete digital contents, the system comprising:

• one or more hardware processors in operable communication with one or more processor-readable storage medium, the one or more processor-readable storage medium containing one or more programming instructions, wherein the one or more hardware processors is configured to implement:
• a temporary computer database, associated with the one or more hardware processors, for receiving the plurality of discrete digital contents from one or more data sources and storing the received plurality of discrete digital contents, wherein the received plurality of discrete digital contents comprises a structure and a plurality of data types;
• a first parser unit, associated with the one or more hardware processors, for parsing the received plurality of discrete digital contents to obtain portable format data by segregating the plurality of discrete digital contents into two or more separate layers of the portable format data, the two or more separate layers comprise respective different data types;
• a masking unit, associated with the one or more hardware processors, for masking individually the two or more separate layers of the portable format data by selecting at least one rule specific to the layer applied to a corresponding data type from a plurality of stored rules and applying a masking methodology based on the selected at least one rule to the two or more separate layers to obtain masked portable format data;
• and
• a second parser unit, associated with the one or more hardware processors, for reverse-parsing the masked portable format data to obtain masked data by reversing the segregating of the two or more separate layers of the masked portable format data to reconstruct the structure of the plurality of discrete digital contents.

A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer usable medium having a computer readable program code embodied therein for masking a plurality of digital contents in a data processing system, the computer program code causing a computing system to perform a method comprising:

• receiving, the at least one digital contents from one or more data sources and storing the received at least one digital contents in a temporary computer database, wherein the received at least one digital contents comprises a plurality of data types;
• parsing, by a first parser unit, associated with one or more processors, the received at least one digital contents to obtain portable format data by segregating the received at least one digital contents by the plurality of data types into separate digital content items arranged in a plurality of layers in the portable format data, the layers being associated with respective different data types;
• masking, by a masking unit, associated with the one or more processors, the portable format data by:
• for a first layer of the portable format data, selecting a first rule corresponding to a first masking methodology applied to a first data type,
• for a second layer of the portable format data, selecting a second rule corresponding to a second masking methodology applied to a second data type, the first and second rules being selected from a plurality of rules, and
• applying the first masking methodology to the first layer and the second masking methodology to the second layer based on the selected first and second rules to obtain masked portable format data;
• and
• reverse-parsing, by a second parser unit, associated with the one or more processors, the masked portable format data to obtain masked data by reversing the segregating of the plurality of digital items in the masked portable format data, and preserving structure of the received at least one digital contents in the masked data.