eSecurity (AS Level) flashcards

Topic 5: eSecurity

What is personal data?

Information about a living person who can be identified from it, alone or combined with other data, e.g. name, address, date of birth, bank details, medical records.

Anonymising vs aggregating data

Anonymising removes or replaces identifiers such as name and ID number from each record. Aggregating combines many records into totals or averages so no individual record is shown.

What is a geotag, and why is it a risk?

A GPS location stored as metadata in a photo or video file. A posted photo could reveal where someone lives.

Phishing, smishing, vishing and pharming

Phishing: email with a link to a fake site. Smishing: SMS text message. Vishing: phone call or voicemail. Pharming: malicious code or a tampered DNS redirects the browser even when the correct address is typed.

Hardware firewall vs software firewall

A hardware firewall is a separate device that protects every device on the network and uses none of their resources. A software firewall runs on one computer, protects it on any network, and can control which applications use the network.

Worm vs trojan

A worm is standalone and spreads across networks by itself. A trojan looks legitimate, has a hidden payload, and relies on a user installing it; it does not replicate.

What are a rootkit and a malicious bot?

A rootkit gains administrator-level access and hides itself and other malware. A malicious bot lets an infected computer be controlled remotely as part of a botnet.

Name four uses of malware

Fraud, theft (of money, data, identities or intellectual property), industrial espionage and sabotage.

Signature-based vs heuristic malware detection

Signature-based matches known malware, so it needs updates and misses new malware. Heuristic spots suspicious behaviour, so it can catch new malware but gives more false positives.