WGU C836 OA Study Guide (Overly Informative) 2022
With Complete Solution
CIA Triad – Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability
Parkerian hexad – Where the CIA triad consists of confidentiality, integrity, and availability, the
Parkerian hexad consists of these three principles, as well as possession or control, authenticity,
and utility
Confidentiality – Refers to our ability to protect our data from those who are not authorized to view
it.
Confidentiality can be compromised by the loss of a laptop containing data, a person looking over
our shoulder while we type a password, an e-mail attachment being sent to the wrong person, an
attacker penetrating our systems, or similar issues.
Integrity – Refers to the ability to prevent our data from being changed in an unauthorized or
undesirable manner. This could mean the unauthorized change or deletion of our data or portions
of our data, or it could mean an authorized, but undesirable, change or deletion of our data. To
maintain integrity, we not only need to have the means to prevent unauthorized changes to our
data but also need the ability to reverse authorized changes that need to be undone.
Availability – refers to the ability to access our data when we need it. Loss of availability can refer to
a wide variety of breaks anywhere in the chain that allows us access to our data. Such issues can
result from power loss, operating system or application problems, network attacks, compromise of
a system, or other problems. When such issues are caused by an outside party, such as an attacker,
they are commonly referred to as a denial of service (DoS) attack.
Possession or Control – Refers to the physical disposition of the media on which the data is stored.
This enables us, without involving other factors such as availability, to discuss our loss of the data
in its physical medium
An example is data store be on multiple devices and there could be numerous versions.
Authenticity – Attribution as to the owner or creator of the data in question.
Authenticity can be enforced through the use of digital signatures.
Utility – Refers to how useful the data is to us.
Interception – Interception attacks allow unauthorized users to access our data, applications, or
environments and are primarily an attack against confidentiality. Interception might take the form
of unauthorized file viewing or copying, eavesdropping on phone conversations, or reading e-mail,
and can be conducted against data at rest or in motion. Properly executed, interception attacks can
be very difficult to detect.
Affects Confidentiality
Interruption – Interruption attacks cause our assets to become unusable or unavailable for our use,
on a temporary or permanent basis. Interruption attacks often affect availability but can be an
attack on integrity as well. In the case of a DoS attack on a mail server, we would classify this as an
availability attack.
Affects Integrity and availability
Modification – Modification attacks involve tampering with our asset. If we access a file in an
unauthorized manner and alter the data it contains, we have affected the integrity of the data
contained in the file.
Fabrication – Fabrication attacks involve generating data, processes, communications, or other
similar activities with a system. Fabrication attacks primarily affect integrity but could be
considered an availability attack as well. If we generate spurious information in a database, this
would be considered to be a fabrication attack.
Affects Integrity and Availability
Threat – Something that has potential to cause harm
Vulnerability – Weaknesses that can be used to harm us
Risk – Likeliness that something bad will happen
Impact – The value of the asset is used to assess if a risk is present
Something you know – Password or PIN
Something you are – An authentication factor using biometrics, such as a fingerprint scanner.
Something you have – Authentication factor that relies on possession (FOB, Card, Cell Phone, Key)
Something you do – An authentication factor indicating action, such as gestures on a touch screen.
Multifactor Authentication – Uses one or more authentication methods for access
Mutual Authentication – A security mechanism that requires that each party in a communication
verify its identity.
Can be combine with multifactor authentication.
In mutual authentication, not only does the client authenticate to the server, but the server
authenticates to the client as well. Mutual authentication is often implemented through the use of
digital certificates. Both the client and the server would have a certificate to authenticate the other.
Biometric: Universality – Characteristics in the majority of people we expect to enroll for the
system.
Biometric: Uniqueness – Measure of how unique a particular characteristic is among individuals
Biometric: Permanence – How well a particular characteristic resists change over time and with
advancing age.