An attacker was able to retrieve data from a test and development environment that contained end user information. Which of the following hardening techniques would BEST prevent this attack from…

Data obfuscation techniques such as masking, tokenization, or synthetic data generation replace real personal data with realistic but non-identifiable values before use in test environments. Had obfuscation been applied, the attacker would have retrieved fictional or irreversible data, eliminating the privacy breach even though unauthorized access to the environment still occurred.

Data classification identifies and labels sensitive data but does not alter or protect the actual data values from being read by an attacker who gains access.

A data dictionary documents data definitions and structures but applies no protective transformation to the underlying personal data.

Data normalization is a database design technique for reducing redundancy and has no bearing on preventing unauthorized exposure of personal information.