Page 41 - DCAP309_INFORMATION_SECURITY_AND_PRIVACY

Unit 3: Building Blocks of Information Security

Rootkit: A hacker security tool that obtains passwords and message traffic to and from a Notes
computer.
Smurfing: Software that mounts a denial of service attack by destroying IP broadcast addressing
and ICMP ping packets to cause flooding.
Spam: Haphazardly sending unsolicited, unwanted, irrelevant or inappropriate messages,
particularly commercial advertising in mass quantities, is measured spam. Another term used
to portray spam is “electronic junk mail.”
Spoofing: Impersonating another person or computer, generally by providing a false email
name, URL or IP address.
Spyware: Software that gathers information about a person or organization without their
knowledge or informed consent and reports such data back to a third party.
Threat: Any situation or event with the potential to unfavorably impact an information system
via unauthorized access, destruction, disclosure, modification of data, and/or denial of service.

Virus: Self-replicating, malicious code that links itself to an application program or other
executable system component and leaves no noticeable signs of its presence.
Vulnerability: Weakness in an information system, system security procedures, internal controls,
or implementation that could be destroyed.
Worm: Autonomous program that replicates from machine to machine across network
connections generally clogging networks and information systems as it spreads.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:
10. ....................... is a hacker security tool that obtains passwords and message traffic to and
from a computer.

11. Haphazardly sending unsolicited, unwanted, irrelevant or inappropriate messages,
particularly commercial advertising in mass quantities, is measured ....................... .

3.4 Three Pillars of Information Security

There are three pillars of information security; that is confidentiality, integrity and availability
that are important to guaranteeing the effective safety of information. Each of these pillars will
be discussed as below.
3.4.1 Confidentiality

The first pillar, confidentiality, is related with guaranteeing that information of a particular
classification is not disseminated to persons outside the group for which it is classified. It makes
sure that only those individuals who have access permissions will be able to inspect certain
information. The group for which the information is classified could be a particular organization,
department or a specific individual.
Confidentiality means that sensitive information must be prohibited from being revealed to
illegal parties. There are usually two methods, or an amalgamation of these, in the course of
which confidentiality can be provided. One method is to limit access to the information that
must be kept undisclosed. The other method is to encrypt the secret information. Confidentiality
is at times also known as secrecy.

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