Information security is the practice of protecting information by mitigating information risks. It is part of information risk management. It typically involves preventing or reducing the probability of unauthorized or inappropriate access to data or the unlawful use, disclosure, disruption, deletion, corruption, modification, inspection, recording, or devaluation of information. It also involves actions intended to reduce the adverse impacts of such incidents. Protected information may take any form, e.g., electronic or physical, tangible, or intangible. Information security's primary focus is the balanced protection of data confidentiality, integrity, and availability while maintaining a focus on efficient policy implementation, all without hampering organization productivity. This is largely achieved through a structured risk management process.
In the security engineering subspecialty of computer science, a trusted system is one that is relied upon to a specified extent to enforce a specified security policy. This is equivalent to saying that a trusted system is one whose failure would break a security policy.
In computer systems security, role-based access control (RBAC) or role-based security is an approach to restricting system access to authorized users, and to implementing mandatory access control (MAC) or discretionary access control (DAC).
The Bell–LaPadula model (BLP) is a state machine model used for enforcing access control in government and military applications. It was developed by David Elliott Bell, and Leonard J. LaPadula, subsequent to strong guidance from Roger R. Schell, to formalize the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) multilevel security (MLS) policy. The model is a formal state transition model of computer security policy that describes a set of access control rules which use security labels on objects and clearances for subjects. Security labels range from the most sensitive, down to the least sensitive.
The Biba Model or Biba Integrity Model developed by Kenneth J. Biba in 1975, is a formal state transition system of computer security policy describing a set of access control rules designed to ensure data integrity. Data and subjects are grouped into ordered levels of integrity. The model is designed so that subjects may not corrupt data in a level ranked higher than the subject, or be corrupted by data from a lower level than the subject.
In computer security, mandatory access control (MAC) refers to a type of access control by which a secured environment constrains the ability of a subject or initiator to access or modify on an object or target. In the case of operating systems, the subject is a process or thread, while objects are files, directories, TCP/UDP ports, shared memory segments, or IO devices. Subjects and objects each have a set of security attributes. Whenever a subject attempts to access an object, the operating system kernel examines these security attributes, examines the authorization rules in place, and decides whether to grant access. A database management system, in its access control mechanism, can also apply mandatory access control; in this case, the objects are tables, views, procedures, etc.
Multilevel security or multiple levels of security (MLS) is the application of a computer system to process information with incompatible classifications, permit access by users with different security clearances and needs-to-know, and prevent users from obtaining access to information for which they lack authorization. There are two contexts for the use of multilevel security.
The Clark–Wilson integrity model provides a foundation for specifying and analyzing an integrity policy for a computing system.
The Brewer and Nash model was constructed to provide information security access controls that can change dynamically. This security model, also known as the Chinese wall model, was designed to provide controls that mitigate conflict of interest in commercial organizations and is built upon an information flow model.
The Graham–Denning model is a computer security model that shows how subjects and objects should be securely created and deleted. It also addresses how to assign specific access rights. It is mainly used in access control mechanisms for distributed systems. There are three main parts to the model: A set of subjects, a set of objects, and a set of eight rules. A subject may be a process or a user that makes a request to access a resource. An object is the resource that a user or process wants to access.
A computer security model is a scheme for specifying and enforcing security policies. A security model may be founded upon a formal model of access rights, a model of computation, a model of distributed computing, or no particular theoretical grounding at all. A computer security model is implemented through a computer security policy.
In the fields of physical security and information security, the high-water mark for access control was introduced by Clark Weissmann in 1969. It pre-dates the Bell–LaPadula security model, whose first volume appeared in 1972.
The XTS-400 is a multilevel secure computer operating system. It is multiuser and multitasking that uses multilevel scheduling in processing data and information. It works in networked environments and supports Gigabit Ethernet and both IPv4 and IPv6.
Information assurance (IA) is the practice of assuring information and managing risks related to the use, processing, storage, and transmission of information. Information assurance includes protection of the integrity, availability, authenticity, non-repudiation and confidentiality of user data. IA encompasses both digital protections and physical techniques. These methods apply to data in transit, both physical and electronic forms, as well as data at rest. IA is best thought of as a superset of information security, and as the business outcome of information risk management.
In computer sciences, the separation of protection and security is an application of the separation of mechanism and policy principle. The protection mechanism is supposed to be a component that implements the security policy. However, many frameworks consider both as security controls of varying types. For example, protection mechanisms would be considered technical controls, while a policy would be considered an administrative control.
Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria (TCSEC) is a United States Government Department of Defense (DoD) standard that sets basic requirements for assessing the effectiveness of computer security controls built into a computer system. The TCSEC was used to evaluate, classify, and select computer systems being considered for the processing, storage, and retrieval of sensitive or classified information.
Cloud computing security or, more simply, cloud security, refers to a broad set of policies, technologies, applications, and controls utilized to protect virtualized IP, data, applications, services, and the associated infrastructure of cloud computing. It is a sub-domain of computer security, network security, and, more broadly, information security.
Security service is a service, provided by a layer of communicating open systems, which ensures adequate security of the systems or of data transfers as defined by ITU-T X.800 Recommendation.
X.800 and ISO 7498-2 are technically aligned. This model is widely recognized
The Fabric of Security, also known as Cyber Security Fabric or Federated Security, refers to systems designed to protect the Information Systems infrastructure of the home, a corporation or government from malicious attackers. Protection in this sense means guaranteeing the confidentiality, integrity, and the availability of the information stored in the system ("SYSTEM"), and its elements or components.
Confidential computing is a security and privacy-enhancing computational technique focused on protecting data in use. Confidential computing can be used in conjunction with storage and network encryption, which protect data at rest and data in transit respectively. It is designed to address software, protocol, cryptographic, and basic physical and supply-chain attacks, although some critics have demonstrated architectural and side-channel attacks effective against the technology.
