Which of the following most closely resembles – “”seeks to prevent unauthorized modification of information?”
Integral
Integrity
Confidential
Secret
Integrity seeks to prevent unauthorized modification of information.
The goal of Integrity is to prevent unauthorized modification of information. The modification can be from an authorized person making an unauthorized, or simply erroneous, update. It could also be safeguarding an unauthorized person from making an update. Either way Integrity ensures there are no unauthorized changes to data. The cybersecurity professional needs to be aware of two types of integrity: data integrity and system integrity. Data integrity seeks to protect data; system integrity seeks to protect the computer system. ( Think a Redhat server. ) Getting back to the medical field, authorized individuals make unauthorized updates to patient information on a daily basis. Do a Google search for “die from wrong blood type”.
In a more down to earth example think of the many transactions that happen at a typical bank branch in a day. Bank customers expect their transactions to be accurate. The balance should always reconcile no matter how many transactions in a given month, or the value of the transactions. The value of the funds withdrawn and the value of the funds deposited need to be consistent. This is a function of integrity.
Several technologies exist that support preserving Integrity. A digital signature provides for the authenticity of digital messages, which among other things, ensures that the message was not altered in transit. A rather old technology that has been used in everything from transmission with modems to storing data in RAID 5 is parity bits. Checksums are similar to parity bits. A checksum is a block of digital data that is used to detect errors which may have been introduced during transmission or storage. Each of these ensure Integrity of data for the user.
