Topic D - Protecting Data and Information Flashcards
What does antivirus do?
Detect any suspicious programs and remove them before they can cause problems.
How does antivirus detect malware?
Scanning newly added files and software, as well as through regularly scheduled scans of storages devices connected to your system.
What will take anti virus longer?
Size of storage device Amount of data being used How defragmented hard disk is Applications running Existing malware
What is a firewall?
Monitors the traffic coming into and out of your computer systems via it ports over a network to look for anything suspicious.
How do firewall prevent harm?
Blocks off any suspicious data.
What is malicious software?
A computer program that is designed to harm or gain unauthorised access to a computer system.
What are the 4 types of malware?
Viruses
Worms
Trojans
Spyware
What are viruses?
A program that copies and insert itself into programs running on your computer system (spreads when programs/data is attached and passed to another system).
What are worms?
A program that copies and inserts itself into programs running on your computer system (spread through a network and find security holes in systems to gain access).
What are trojans?
A harmful program that masquerades as a legitimate software application (spreads by users downloading it thinking its a program).
What is a spyware?
A malicious program that monitors user activity for the purpose of stealing personal information.
What impact does malware have on individuals and organisations?
Can be used to corrupt and delete data on IT systems, which mean they have to spend time recovering data from backups.
What is a hacker?
Someone who gains unauthorised access to a computer system.
What are white hat hackers?
They test systems for security flaws by attempting to gain access to help check the security procedures of an organisation.
What is the impact of hackers on individuals and organisations?
Unauthorised access can be used to steal financial, personal or business information.
The data can also be used for blackmail.
What is meant by the term phishing?
Where emails or messages are sent to pretend to be from a reputable company but in fact they are not instead they are a malicious user who have the purpose to gain personal or financial information.
What is the impact of phishing on individuals/businesses?
The personal or financial information obtained can be used for stealing money or identity fraud or hacking into the business.
What is accidental damage?
Where IT systems or data are harmed through human error, such as dropping a device or accidentally overwriting important files.
What 7 techniques are there for protecting data?
File permissions Access levels Backup and recovery procedures Passwords Physical access controls Digital certificates Protocols
What does file permissions do?
You can set who can access the files and what they can do with them.
What 3 files permissions can you set?
Read only
Write only
Full control
What is read only?
Files can be opened and viewed, but not edited.
What is read/write?
Files can be opened, viewed, edited, modified and deleted.
What are access levels?
Control what software, data and services a user can access.
What is the highest access level?
Administrator access.
What is administrator access?
A user can access all folders with full control, alter the permissions of other users and can install and delete software.
What can the lowest access level do?
A user can only access a limited number of files and the software they need to do their job.
What are backups?
Involves taking a copy of the data and storing it in a secondary location.
What three types of backups are there?
Full backups
Incremental backup
Differential backup
What is a full backup?
A complete backup of all your data.
What is an incremental backup?
A backup of only the data that has changed since the previous backup.
What is differential backup?
A mixture of a full backup and an incremental backup.
What does physical access controls do?
Prevent unauthorised users from gaining access to our IT systems.
What are 4 examples of physical access controls?
Access cards
Keypad access control
Biometric
Electronic locks
What are access cards?
Cards that must be scanned to unlock rooms.
What are keypad access controls?
A system that requires a passcode to gain entry to a room.
What are biometric access controls?
A system that scans biometric data to gain access to a room.
What are electronic locks?
To lock and unlock doors electronically when sent signals from the above access controls systems.
What are digital certificates?
Used to authenticate a user as the owner of a public key so they can use public key encryption.
What is the 2 important contents to a digital certificate?
Digital signature
Public key
What is a digital signature?
Verifies the sender identity
What is the public key?
Used to encrypt data when sending it to the website.
What are protocols?
A set of rules that defines a method for transmitting data between different devices over a network.
What are the 2 security protocols?
SSL
TLS
What do the security protocols allow us to do?
Send data securely over the internet using encryption.
What are the 4 tools used for protecting data?
Antivirus
Firewalls
Encryption
Legislation and Codes of Practices
What are 3 common features you see in antivirus software?
Scheduled scans (can be set automatically).
Full scans on entire hard disk.
Scanning of all fires opened (known as real time protection).
What are 3 disadvantages of antivirus software?
Needs to be regularly maintained and updated as new viruses are found.
Doesn’t offer total protection as new malware programs being written.
Can slow down PC/network performance (take up hard disk space, memory, processing power).
What are 3 common features of a firewall?
Content filtering (used for security/productivity purposes). Controlling which programs can access the LAN/internet. Intruder detection/prevention (identifies/stops hacker from gaining access to network or computer system).
What is 3 disadvantages of firewalls?
Diminishes performance of the network.
Productivity can be impaired (things may be blocked by firewall when needed).
Cannot prevent internal attack from within the network.
What 2 types of data do we encrypt?
Stored data
Transmitted data
What is stored data?
Uses the same key to both encrypt and decrypt the data (symmetric encryption).
What is transmitted data?
Uses different keys to encrypt and decrypt the data (asymmetric data).
What are 2 implications of stored data?
If you lose the encryption key, you won’t ever able to decrypt the data.
Sharing of the encryption key can compromise security (key can be intercepted).
What is an implication of transmitted data?
If working in large quantities data, the data have a real impact on processing power.
What 2 legislation have been implemented to protect data and IT systems from harm?
Data protection act (1998)
Computer misuse act (1990)
What is the data protection act (1998)?
Protect how individuals data can be used and handled.
What is the computer misuse act (1990)?
Protects against the wilful harm and damage of the IT systems and data.
