Tokenization as a data security technique

Nowadays, organisations, especially those which embrace the modern cloud computing technology, are facing the complex challenge of securing their data assets while providing modern IT services. Classical solutions for ensuring data security have consistent limitations in modern platforms due to factors like data sharing requirements, multi-tenancy, dynamic environment, high availability and reliability requirements, etc. One approach to address this problem is to implement encryption mechanisms which will provide the required security, but they depend on substantial investments in hardware and/or software and add supplementary complexity to those systems. This article analyses tokenization as an alternative strategy for ensuring data security in modern cloud computing systems by implementing mechanisms to hide sensitive data and restrict access to it. Tokenization systems are more easy to implement and can be used extensively for ensuring data security in IT systems.