Basic Security Terminology Flashcards

1
Q

What does a system contain?

A
  • Assets
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
2
Q

What is an asset of a system?

A
  • Functionality users depend on
  • Data that is accepted, stored, manipulated or transmitted by the system
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
3
Q

What is a weakness?

A
  • Underlying defect that modifies behavior or functionality (resulting in incorrect behavior) or allows unverified or incorrect access to data
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
4
Q

If a weakness is vulnerable to external influence what does this mean?

A
  • The weakness is exploitable
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
5
Q

If a weakness is exploitable what is it called?

A
  • A vulnerability
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
6
Q

What is an actor?

A
  • An individual or process external to the system
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
7
Q

If an actor has malicious intent what are the potential consequences?

A
  • They may try to exploit a vulnerability
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
8
Q

What causes a threat event?

A
  • An actor with malicious intent tries to exploit a vulnerability by altering conditions to create opportunities to attempt exploitation
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
9
Q

What is a threat event?

A
  • When an adversary makes an attempt (successful or not) to exploit a vulnerability with an intended objective or outcome
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
10
Q

What creates value in a system

A
  • A combination of data and functionality
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
11
Q

What is meant by exploitability?

A

A measure of how easily an attacker can make use of a weakness to cause harm

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
12
Q

What is a vulnerability?

A

A means for an adversary with malicious intent to cause some sort of damage to a system by exploiting a weakness in the system

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
13
Q

What is a zero-day vulnerability?

A

Vulnerabilities that exist in a system that are previously undiscovered

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
14
Q

How are zero-day vulnerabilities different from other vulnerabilities?

A

They are likely to be unresolved and the potential for exploitation may be elevated.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
15
Q

What is the CWE database?

A

The common weakness enumeration database is a taxonomy of security weaknesses

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
16
Q

What is the CWE database used for?

A

It’s referenced when investigating system design concerns

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
17
Q

What is meant by severity of a weakness?

A

The amount of damage that can be caused by successful exploitation of a vulnerability

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
18
Q

What is Impact?

A

If a weakness or vulnerability is exploited there will be some impact to the system

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
19
Q

How is severity related to impact

A

When assessing severity the impact is a measure of the potential loss of functionality/data as a result of the successful exploitation of a weakness or vulnerability

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
20
Q

What is an actor with malicious intent called?

A

An adversary

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
21
Q

What is an actor with malicious intent called?

A

An adversary

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
22
Q

What is a threat?

A

A non-zero probability of an attacker taking advantage of a vulnerability to negatively impact the system in a particular way

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
23
Q

What does loss occur

A

Loss occurs when one (or more) impacts affect functionality and/or data as a result of an adversary causing a threat event

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
24
Q

What is risk?

A

A combination of the potentially exploited target’s value, costs to mitigate, and the likelihood a negative impact may be realized

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
25
Q

How is risk used?

A

Used to decide on the priority of an issue and to decide whether to fix the issue

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
26
Q

What does CVSS stand for?

A

Common Vulnerability Scoring System

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
27
Q

What is the purpose of CVSS scores?

A

It identifies severity and it’s components

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
28
Q

What is a CVSS score?

A

It’s a calculation used to determine the severity of an issue.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
29
Q

What is a CVSS score based on?

A

It’s based upon the likelihood of a successful exploitation of a vulnerability, and a measurement of potential impact (or damage)

30
Q

What does a CVSS not tell you?

A

A measure of the risk of an attacker exploiting the vulnerability

31
Q

What is the foundation on which all things security are built upon?

A
  • confidentiality
  • integrity
  • availability
32
Q

How does a system achieve confidentiality?

A

It has to guarantee access to the data entrusted to it exclusively to those who have the appropriate rights, based on their need to know the protected information

33
Q

When does Integrity exist?

A

When the following conditions are met:

  • When the authenticity of data or operations can be verified.
  • The data or functionality has not been modified or made unauthentic through unauthorized activity
34
Q

What does availability mean in the context of the core security pillars?

A

Authorized actors are able to access system functionality and/or data whenever they have the need or desire to do so

35
Q

What is availability compromised?

A

When the system is unavailable because of a malicious action by an adversary

36
Q

What is privacy?

A

The right of not having information exposed to unauthorized third parties

37
Q

What is a prerequisite for privacy?

A

Confidentiality

38
Q

To support many security objectives what must an actor be granted?

A
  • An unique identifier meaningful to the system
39
Q

What must-have information is associated with an identity?

A
  • Information that allows a system to positively identify the actor
40
Q

How is identity proven to a system?

A
  • using credentials such as passwords or security tokens
41
Q

What is authentication?

A
  • Actors using a system provide satisfactory proof of their identity so the system can verify it’s communicating with the right actor
42
Q

What is authentication?

A
  • Actors using a system provide satisfactory proof of their identity so the system can verify it’s communicating with the right actor
43
Q

What is a prerequisite to authorization in a system?

A
  • A user must be authenticated with the system
44
Q

What is authorization in a system?

A
  • A user is granted privilege’s within the system, based on an authorization scheme, to preform operations or access functionality or data
45
Q

When a actor is authenticated with a system what is the system able to do?

A
  • The system can assign rights to the actor
46
Q

What does MAC stand for in the context of an access control scheme?

A
  • Mandatory Access Control scheme
47
Q

What is the MAC control scheme?

A
  • System constrains the authorization of actors
48
Q

What DAC stand for in the context of an access control scheme?

A
  • Discretionary Access Control
49
Q

What is the discretionary access control scheme?

A
  • Actors can define privilege’s for operations
50
Q

What does RBAC stand for in the context of access control schemes?

A
  • Role Based Access Control
51
Q

What is role based access control?

A
  • Actors are grouped by meaningful ‘roles’ and these roles define privilege assignments
52
Q

What is capability based access control?

A
  • Authorization subsystem assigns rights through tokens that actors must request(and be granted) in order to perform operations
53
Q

What is zero trust?

A
  • A common approach to system design and security compliance
54
Q

What is assumed with zero-trust?

A
  • The best outcome is assumed for an operation and any prior trust relationship is ignored. Verification takes place before establishing a trust relationship for each operation
55
Q

What Designed by Contract?

A
  • Assumes whenever a client calls a server the input coming from the client will be of a certain fixed format and will not deviate from it.
56
Q

What does Designed by Contract address?

A
  • zero trust by ensuring every interaction follows a fixed protocol
57
Q

What is the principal of least privilege?

A
  • an operation should run with only the most restrictive privilege level that still enables the operation to succeed
58
Q

What is an authorization context?

A
  • an operating system, an application, databases
59
Q

When does the principle of least privilege apply?

A
  • for every system that has an authorization context
60
Q

What is defense in depth?

A
  • a multifaceted and layered approach to defend a system and it’s assets
61
Q

What is considered an effective ‘layer’ in defense in depth?

A
  • any factor that acts as a ‘bump in the road’ and makes an attack costlier in terms of time, money, complexity
62
Q

What is meant by ‘no secret sauce’?

A
  • Don’t rely on obscurity as a means of security. System design should be resillient to attack even if every detail is known and published.
63
Q

What is meant by ‘separation of privilege’?

A
  • Segregating access to functionality or data within the system so one actor doesn’t hold all the rights
64
Q

What is an example of ‘separation of privilege’?

A
  • A person(or process) makes a request for an operation to occur and set the parameters but another user or process is required to authorize the transaction to proceed.
65
Q

What is the goal of ‘separation of privilege’?

A
  • Prevents a single entity from performing malicious activities unimpeded or without oversight
66
Q

What does it mean to ‘consider the human factor’?

A
  • Decide on how much security will be acceptable to users
67
Q

What are the implications of not ‘considering the human factor’?

A
  • Users stop using the system
  • Users find workarounds to bypass security measures
  • MGMT stops supporting security because it impairs productivity
68
Q

What does a security analysis need to answer from looking at logs?

A
  • Who preformed an action that caused an event to be recorded?
  • When was the action preformed or the event recorded?
  • What data or functionality was accessed by the process or user?
69
Q

What is nonrepudiation?

A
  • have a set of transactions indicating who did what.
  • each transaction has integrity maintained as a property
70
Q

What is meant by ‘fail secure’?

A
  • when the system encounters an error condition it doesn’t reveal too much information to a potential adversary
71
Q

What is meant by ‘fail secure’ in the context of a component or logic?

A
  • if failure occurs the result is a secure one
72
Q

What is meant by ‘built in, not bold on’?

A
  • Security, privacy, safety should be fundamental properties of the system and any security features of the system should be built in from the beginning