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• Security attack: Any action that compromises the security of information owned by an
organization.

• Security mechanism: A process (or a device incorporating such a process) designed to

detect, prevent, or recover from a security attack.

• Security service: A processing or communication service that enhances the security of

the data processing systems and the information transfers. The services are intended
to counter security attacks, and they make use of one or more security mechanisms to
provide the service.
• Passive attacks are in the nature of eavesdropping on, or monitoring of, transmissions.
The goal of the opponent is to obtain information that is being transmitted. This figure
shows a typical scenario of passive attack. The two parties, Bob and Alice, are
exchanging some data. There exists a passive attacker, Darth, who eavesdrops on the
data transmission and attempts to read contents of the transmitted message. However,
Darth does not take any other action.
• Masquerade: one entity pretends to be a different entity

• Replay: passive capture of a data unit and its subsequent retransmission

• Modification of messages: some portion of a legitimate message is altered, or that

messages are delayed or reordered

• Denial of service: prevents or inhibits the normal use or management of

communications facilities
• Authentication service: assures that a communication is authentic, that is, each entity
is the entity that it claims to be

• Access Control service: ability to limit and control the access to host systems and
applications

• Data Confidentiality service: protection of transmitted data from passive attacks

• Data Integrity service: assures that messages are received as sent with no duplication,
insertion, modification, reordering, or replays

• Nonrepudiation service: prevents either sender or receiver from denying a transmitted

message.
• The table indicates the relationship between security services and security mechanisms.
For example, digital signature can be used to provide authentication service, encryption
and traffic padding can provide confidentiality service, and so on.
• The figure shows a model for network security.

• Basically, there are two parties, a sender and a recipient, who want to exchange a
message. The message may travel across a network, usually a public network, for
example, the Internet. There may exist an opponent, an attacker, who may present a
threat to confidentiality, authenticity, and so on. So it is necessary to protect the
message transmission. All of the techniques for providing security have two
components:

• A security-related transformation on the information to be sent. For example, the

sender may encrypt the message, so that it becomes unreadable by the opponent. As a
result, confidentiality can be achieved. The sender may also attach a digital signature
to the message, which can be used by the recipient to verify the identity of the sender.

• Some secret information shared by the two principals and unknown to the opponent.
An example is an encryption key used along with the transformation.

• A trusted third party may be involved to achieve secure transmission. For example, a
third party may distribute the secret information to the two parties while keeping it
from any opponent.
• Essentially, the above model focuses on securing transmitted data. There are other
security-related situations of interest that do not neatly fit this model but also
important. The following model captures these situations, which reflects a concern to
protect an information system, for example, a corporate network, from unwanted
access.

• The first type of unwanted access is the existence of hackers who attempt to penetrate
information systems that can be accessed over a network. Another type of unwanted
access is malicious software, including virus, worm, and so on, which usually exploits
vulnerabilities in the system and can be introduced into the system by means of a disk
or across a network.

• Basically, to protect the information system from unwanted access, there are two lines
of defense. The first line is called a gatekeeper function, which usually resides on the
perimeter between the information system and the outside world and tries to prevent
outside threats from entering the system. An example of the gatekeeper function is a
firewall. Once an unwanted user or unwanted software gains access, the second line of
defense consists of a variety of internal controls, which monitor activity and analyze
stored information, attempting to detect the presence of unwanted intruders. A typical
example of internal control is an intrusion detection system.