Week 1 (Introduction to Cybersecurity) Flashcards
What is Cybersecurity?
Security of information systems and networks (cyberspace) in the face of attacks, accidents, and failures, with the goal of protecting operations and assets.
What is the CIA Triad?
Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability.
What is Confidentiality and how is it violated?
Confidentiality is that certain information should only be known by certain people, and those who are unauthorized are actively prevented from obtaining access.
It is violated intentionally through direct attacks or unintentionally through human error.
What is Integrity and how is it violated?
Integrity is that the data is stored and transferred as intended and any modification is authorized. It is ensuring that data has not been tampered with and therefore can be trusted. Integrity means that the data is correct, authentic, and reliable.
It is violated directly via an attack vector, or unintentionally through human error.
What is an attack vector?
It is the path that a hacker takes to exploit cybersecurity vulnerabilities.
What is Availability and how is it violated?
Availability is that the information is accessible to those authorized to view or modify it. It means that networks and applications are up and running, and the authorized users have timely, reliable access to resources when they are needed.
It is violated through hardware or software failures, power failures, natural disasters, or human errors. It is also violated through attacks, the most common of which are denial-of-service (DoS) attacks.
What are the Seven Security Domains in Information Security?
Give a paragraph linking all seven.
Organization, End-Users, Physical access, System, Software, Network, Data
In every organization, there are people. People have physical access to computer systems. In the system, there is software. The software makes the system communicate with one another over the network. in the network, you find data flowing from one end to another.
What are the three types of assets in an organization?
Tangible assets, Intangible assets, and Employees.
Explain Vulnerability, Threat, and Risk.
A Vulnerability is a weakness that could be triggered accidentally or exploited intentionally to cause a security breach.
A Threat is the potential for something or someone that may trigger a vulnerability accidentally or exploit it intentionally to ‘exercise’ a vulnerability.
A Risk is the likelihood and impact (or consequence) of a threat actor exploiting a vulnerability.
FOR THIS CONTEXT: threat (attacker of vulnerability), asset (Valued resource) and vulnerability (Exploitable weakness) must all be present to have a risk
What is a threat actor?
An entity that is partially or wholly responsible for an incident that impacts - or has the potential to impact - an organization’s security.
Give 5 examples of threat actors.
Hackers/Hacktivists, Nation States, Cyberterrorists, Organized Crime, Trusted Insider
What are Hackers/Hacktivists?
Hacker and attacker are related terms for individuals who have the skills to gain access to computer systems through unauthorized or unapproved means.
Hacktivists use cyber weapons to promote a political agenda - or for publicity - and they target anything and everything
What are Nation States as threat actors?
Nation States use cyber weapons to achieve both military and commercial (Economic) goals. They attack IP or infrastructure.
Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) is a stealthy threat actor that is typically nation-state or state-sponsored which gains unauthorized access to a computer network and remains undetected for an extended period.
What is Cyberterrorism?
Cyberterrorism can be defined as the intentional use of computers, networks, and public internet to cause destruction and harm for personal objectives.
Often to cause support, and they target highly visible targets.
What is Organized Crime?
They seek any opportunity for criminal profit. Typical activity is financial fraud and blackmail. Often attack IP, Banks or PoS.
