PRACTICAL-6

Aim: Explain Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability.

 Confidentiality: -
 In simple terms, confidentiality means something that is secret and is not supposed to be
disclosed to unintended people or entities.
 Confidentiality ensures that sensitive information is accessed only by an authorized person and
kept away from those not authorized to possess them.
 Everyone has information which they wish to keep secret. Thus, protecting such information is
an important part of information security.
Examples of confidential information:
 Bank account statements.
 Personal information.
 Credit card numbers.
 Trade secrets.
 Government documents.
In the event that confidentiality is compromised, it might result in unauthorized access to personal
information or even complete loss of privacy.
Examples of attacks that affect confidentiality:
 Packet sniffing.
 Password cracking.
 Dumpster diving.
 Wiretapping.
 Keylogging.
 Phishing.
Ways to ensure confidentiality:
 Usernames and passwords.
 Two-factor authentication.
 Biometric verification.
 Security tokens or key fobs.
 Data encryption.
 Integrity: -
 integrity means that when a sender sends data, the receiver must receive exactly the same data as
sent by the sender.
 Data must not be changed in transit. For example, if someone sends a message “Hello!”, then the
receiver must receive “Hello!” That is, it must BE exactly the same data as sent by the sender. Any
addition or subtraction of data during transit would mean the integrity has been compromised.
 Note that the changes in data might also occur as a result of non-human-caused events such as an
electromagnetic pulse (EMP) or server crash, so it’s important to have the backup procedure and
redundant systems in place to ensure data integrity.
Example attacks that affect Integrity:
 Data modify attacks.
 Session hijacking.
 Man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack.

 Availability: -
 Availability implies that information is available to the authorized parties whenever required.
Unavailability to data and systems can have serious consequences.
 It is essential to have plans and procedures in place to prevent or mitigate data loss as a result of a
disaster. A disaster recovery plan must include unpredictable events such as natural disasters and
fire.
 A routine backup job is advised in order to prevent or minimize total data loss from such
occurrences.
 Also, extra security equipment or software such as firewalls and proxy servers can guard against
downtime and unreachable data due to malicious actions such as denial-of-service (DoS) attacks
and network intrusions.
Example attacks that affect Availability:
 DoS and DDoS attacks.
 SYN flood attacks.
 Physical attacks on server infrastructure.
 Authentication: -
 In the context of computer systems, authentication is a process that ensures and confirms a user’s
identity. Authentication is one of the five pillars of information assurance (IA).
 Authentication begins when a user tries to access information. First, the user must prove his access
rights and identity. When logging into a computer, users commonly enter usernames and passwords
for authentication purposes. This login combination, which must be assigned to each user,
authenticates access.
 A better form of authentication, biometrics, depends on the user’s presence and biological makeup
(i.e., retina or fingerprints). This technology makes it more difficult for hackers to break into
computer systems.
 Non-repudiation: -
 Nonrepudiation is a method of guaranteeing message transmission between parties via digital
signature and/or encryption.
 It is one of the five pillars of information assurance (IA).
 In other words, non-repudiation makes it very difficult to successfully deny who/where a message
came from as well as the authenticity of that message.
 nonrepudiation protects the recipient and the sender when a recipient denies receiving an email.

 Access-control: -
 Network access control (NAC) is an approach to network management and security that enforces
security policy, compliance and management of access control to a network.
 It is a network solution that enables only compliant, authenticated and trusted endpoint devices and
nodes to access network resources and infrastructure.
 It also monitors and controls their activity once they are on the network.
 Network access control is also known as network admission control (NAC).