Don't Have It, Limit It or Hide It?

About this interactive

The Keeping Data Confidential lesson says every way to keep data confidential falls into one of three categories. Don't have it. Data you do not hold cannot be compromised. The lesson's e-commerce example: don't take card numbers if there is another way to charge; hand card processing to another company; delete the card after a one-time charge, or when the customer leaves; or delete part of it, such as the security code once the charge is done. It all comes down to keeping only what the business needs. Limit access. If you must keep it, control who can reach it: by user and credentials (password, two-factor, biometrics), by certificate, by device, by schedule, or by location such as an IP address or VLAN. Segmentation limits access too: put the database server on its own network and allow only the web traffic and a few admins in. Conceal it. The data is still there, maybe even reachable, but unreadable or hidden: encryption, steganography, masking or obfuscation. A quick test for each card: after this step, is the data gone, fenced off, or disguised?

What you'll learn

Place a confidentiality measure in one of the lesson's three strategies: don't have the data, limit access to it, or conceal it
Recognize minimizing data (not collecting it, handing processing off, deleting it fully or in part) as a confidentiality strategy alongside access control, segmentation and concealment

Aligned to

CompTIA Security+

3.3 Compare and contrast concepts and strategies to protect data.

NIST 800-53

AC-6 Least Privilege

AC-3 Access Enforcement

ISC2 CISSP

2.4 Manage data lifecycle

Key terms

Confidentiality: The principle that information is accessible only to those authorized to access it.
Data Minimization: The practice of collecting and retaining only the sensitive data necessary for legitimate business purposes, reducing exposure and liability.
Access Control: A security mechanism that restricts access to resources based on policies, roles, or identity.
Encryption: The process of converting readable data into an unreadable format using an algorithm and key to prevent unauthorized access.
Steganography: The practice of concealing a message within another medium, such as an image or sentence, so its existence is hidden rather than its content scrambled.
Masking: A data obfuscation technique that hides portions of sensitive data, such as displaying only the last four digits of a credit card number.

Topics

Confidentiality Data Protection Interactive Categorize

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