3_Information_security_didactic_2_v2

The integrity of information is the condition that the information has not been changed when performing any operation on it.

Integrity is the guarantee that the information remains unchanged, correct and authentic. Ensuring integrity involves the prevention and definition of unauthorized creation, modification, or deletion of information. An example would be measures to ensure that the mail message was not changed during shipment.

Integrity is a property of information that ensures that only certain individuals can change information.

For example.

1. Let's continue the example with the firm "Mercury" and with their sales report. As it was said earlier, the Sales Department has access to all information, and the accounting department only to a certain part. But for safety, this is still not enough. It is also necessary to differentiate access among the Sales Department. The department has two specialists Serikov and Petrov, each with their own report. It is necessary that everyone can have the right to write only in their report. Suddenly, Petrov underestimated sales of Serikov.

2. The firm "Mercury" created and sent a payment on the RB to his bank, but the hacker Talgat intercepted the payment and inserted the number of his account in the recipient field. This is a direct violation of integrity. To avoid this, it is necessary to take a number of measures, for example, EDS.

3. Illegal change of information can also bring many problems. For example, an attacker can forge any document, as a result of which damage can be caused. Or the integrity of the data may be compromised as a result of a power outage.

Data integrity can be verified in various ways. The most common is hash functions. The hash function calculates a certain value according to information from one of the numerical methods. This value has a fixed size. It is called a hash sum. The hash function is designed so that even with a slight change in information, the hash sum is very different from the original. If the value of the hash sum is different from what was received earlier - the information has been changed.