DarkShield v7 delivers substantial multi-threaded performance improvements, stronger personally identifiable information (PII) and protected health information (PHI) protection functions, broader source-format support, and a streamlined application programming interface (API) architecture.
The release expands the capabilities available to organizations that need to discover, deidentify, anonymize, pseudonymize, and mask sensitive data across structured, semi-structured, and unstructured sources. It also introduces improvements designed to accelerate data-protection workflows while supporting privacy compliance, testing, analytics, and secure data sharing.
DarkShield v7 Highlights
- Up to 3X faster search and masking through worker pool concurrency
- Expanded PII discovery and masking support for MongoDB, PDFs, Office files, DICOM, and delimited outputs
- Additional identity fabrication, date pseudonymization, hashing, and encryption capabilities
- Unified API endpoint architecture with compressed response packages and JWT authentication
- Improved detection and obfuscation of faces and signatures using trained AI models
Performance Improvements
- Worker Pool Concurrency: Multi-threaded requests boost search and masking speed by up to 3X.
- Search Matcher Caching: Compiled matchers can be reused to accelerate repeated PII discovery operations.
- Database Update Caching: An optional, faster method is available for updating and masking values in place.
Functional Upgrades
- JPath Matchers for MongoDB: Additional PII discovery options recognize BSON keys in MongoDB data.
- Identity Fabrication: Additional synthetic identity types support anonymization and test-data generation.
- Date Pseudonymization Rule: A new rule supports consistent, privacy-preserving date shifting.
- SHA-3 Hashing: A modern hashing rule provides an alternative for security applications requiring hashing beyond SHA-256.
- AES-256 SIV and FF1 FPE: New encryption options support misuse-resistant authenticated encryption and format-preserving encryption aligned with applicable NIST standards.
Format Expansions
- Edge-Case Document Handling: Improved PII discovery supports more complex PDF and Microsoft Office files.
- Face and Signature Detection: Trained AI models help detect and obfuscate faces and signatures in supported content.
- DICOM Enhancements: Metadata tags can be matched to burned-in pixel text to support masking in medical imaging files.
- Relational Database to Delimited Masked Output: Masked table data can now also be written to delimited files.
API Enhancements
- Unified Endpoint Architecture: A single instruction-driven endpoint supports all DarkShield operations.
- Compressed Response Package: Masked content and associated logs can be returned in a single compressed folder to improve accessibility and reduce storage requirements.
- JWT Authentication: Standards-based JSON Web Token authentication supports role-based access control.
- Additional Log: A new JSON log supports use with the IRI OGS log wrangler.
Together, these updates make DarkShield v7 better suited for enterprise data-masking workflows that require high-volume discovery, privacy-preserving transformation, flexible source coverage, and integration with existing data-security processes.
DarkShield v7 is available for organizations seeking self-hosted data discovery, deidentification, masking, and audit logging across sensitive structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data.
About IRI and DarkShield
IRI, The CoSort Company, has been a leader in big-data manipulation solutions since 1978 and in confidential data masking since 2007. IRI's third data-masking tool, DarkShield, delivers fast, self-hosted, and privacy-law-compliant discovery, deidentification, and logging of sensitive data in structured, semi-structured, and unstructured sources for public- and private-sector enterprises.
Media Contact
Alyssa Ardhya, Press Relations Officer
Innovative Routines International (IRI), Inc.
Email: alyssaa@iri.com
Phone: 1.321.777.8889, ext. 211
