1. Key Exchange In symmetric encryption, the sender and receiver share a single secret key that nobody else should know. Before the sender and receiver can begin to communicate using a symmetric algorithm, they must somehow agree upon and exchange the shared secret key that they will use for that communication session. Problems with Key exchange EG: Alice and Bob…
Security+ Course – 6.3 Asymmetric Cryptography
1. Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA) Asymmetric cryptography solves issues of scalability by giving each user a pair of keys for use in encryption and decryption operations. The RSA algorithm was one of the earliest asymmetric cryptographic algorithms and it is still used today. It was published in 1977. There’s a lot of complex maths involved in creating that key pair, but the…
Security+ Course – 6.2 Symmetric Cryptography
1. Data Encryption Standard (DES) DES was designed by IBM in the 1970’s Intended to serve as a federal encryption standard. Up until that point different agencies used different encryption algorithms. This caused issues with security because all of those algorithms weren’t thoroughly tested, and interoperability because different agencies couldn’t easily communicate with each other How DES Works DES uses…
Security+ Course – 6.1 Encryption
1. Understanding Encryption Cryptography is the use of mathematical algorithms to transform information into a form that is not readable by unauthorised individuals. Cryptography does, however, provide authorised individuals with the ability to transform that encrypted information back into readable form. Encryption: converts information from its plaintext form into an encrypted version that is unreadable. This is known as ciphertext…
Security+ Course – 5.6 Data Security and Privacy
1. Understanding Data Security Data States 1. Data at rest: is data stored somewhere for later use. This might be on a hard drive or USB stick, in a cloud service, or on a magnetic tape as part of a backup or archival solution. Data at rest is vulnerable to theft if an attacker gains either physical or logical access…
Security+ Course – 5.5 Forensics
1. Conducting Investigations There are four main types of investigations that often involve cybersecurity professionals. These are: 1. Operational investigations: Seek to resolve technology issues (EG: service might be returning errors, a server might be responding too slowly, or a network might be congested) Restore normal operations as quickly as possible low standards of evidence as no legal action involved…
Security+ Course – 5.4 Incident Response
1. Security Incidents Security Incident Terminology Security Event: these occur anytime that an observable action takes place on a system that has security implications. This may be a user accessing a web page, a file being written to disk by a process, a connection being established through a firewall, or any other security related event. Thousands of security events take…
Security+ Course – 5.3 Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
1. Business Continuity Planning Business continuity efforts are a collection of activities designed to keep a business running in the face of adversity. This adversity may come in the form of a small-scaled incident such as a single system failure or a catastrophic incident, such as an earthquake or tornado. Business continuity plans may also be activated by man-made disasters…
Security+ Course – 5.2 Supply Chain Risks
1. Managing Vendor Relationships Security professionals must pay careful attention to managing these vendor relationships in a way that protects the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of their organisation’s information and IT systems. This is known as Supply Chain Assessment. Perhaps, the most important rule of thumb is that you should always ensure that vendors follow security policies and procedures that…
Security+ Course – 5.1 Controls & Risks
1. Security Controls Security controls are procedures and mechanisms that an organisation puts in place to address security risks in some manner. This might include trying to reduce the likelihood of a risk materialising, trying to minimise the impact of a risk if it does occur, and trying to detect security issues that actually do take place. Defense in Depth…