Indranil Datta

Sandbox testing, beta testing are the most viable environment for executing test cases where real data is involved. In those cases secure environment risk would be transferred to the end users and product development team does not have to worry about data security.

Data collected from real users should have in agreement with them about the usage. It can be a legal issue otherwise. These type of data should be tested during beta testing and let the product team give full rights to the customer sites to test their functionality in order to avoid such implications.

Data annonymization is a good technique to hide data while performing tests. There are certain techniques in this category for specific types of data. 1. Masking : We would like to mask data where test cases won't be validating the data we are masking i.e data need not be confidential and intrigity won't be affected if aim of the execution of the test cases is supposed to modify those values. 2. Pseudonymization, Purturbation: As this data is synthetic by nature, test cases should not consider such values to be wrong expected information. 3. Generalization, Swapping: test cases should not assume missing information during execution, in such situations it is better to avoid to run those tests.

There is a standard operating procedure for identifying relevant data. The relevant data should be sensitive and personal enough to be taken into consideration. And that needs analysis of the data used in the product in any manner. Protection of data is also dependent on creating a watch list of its duration of usage, disposal on post usage and above all taking concent from the user if that can identify him/her directly or indirectly.

There are a variety of automated tools to audit and update DNS policies. DNSInspect, Zonemaster, DNSstuff, DNSCheck, RIPE NCC DNSMON, Nagios XI, Bind9 DNS Tools, nfoblox DNS Audit, SecurityTrails are among few where along with automated check, they provide options to check DNS manually.

Understand the skill gap by looking at the bugs in code, time to complete functionality, missing design elements , gaps in capturing requirement or unable to identify the risks in terms of software development. Check what's industry's average delivery time in the same sector. This analysis will establish the need for skill enhancement. Perform a research and evaluate the shortest way to achieve delta improvement. Avail the opportunity to the team slowly and keep a target time frame to achieve the above average delivery time.