Patent ID: 8306932

Claim:
A method for adaptive data masking of data present in a first database, the method comprising: extracting data from the first database; applying one or more predefined rules based on properties of the first database for masking the extracted data, wherein the one or more predefined rules are designed based on association between data organized in the first database, and further wherein the one or more predefined rules specify a portion of the extracted data required to be masked; segregating a first portion of the extracted data required for masking from a second portion of the extracted data not required for masking based on the one or more predefined rules; selectively masking the first portion of the extracted data using a trained Artificial Neural Network (ANN) based on the one or more predefined rules, wherein the ANN is previously trained for masking at least one database having properties similar to the first database; aggregating the masked data and the second portion of the extracted data to arrive at an output structurally similar to the extracted data; checking if the output is in accordance with the one or more predefined rules; modifying the output based on the one or more predefined rules, if the output is not in accordance with the one or more predefined rules; and adapting the trained ANN automatically according to the modified output.