The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) used to rank cryptographic products or algorithms by a certification called product types. Product types were defined in the National Information Assurance Glossary which used to define Type 1, 2, 3, and 4 products. The definitions of numeric type products have been removed from the government lexicon and are no longer used in government procurement efforts.
In cryptography, plaintext usually means unencrypted information pending input into cryptographic algorithms, usually encryption algorithms. This usually refers to data that is transmitted or stored unencrypted.
TEMPEST is a U.S. National Security Agency specification and a NATO certification referring to spying on information systems through leaking emanations, including unintentional radio or electrical signals, sounds, and vibrations. TEMPEST covers both methods to spy upon others and how to shield equipment against such spying. The protection efforts are also known as emission security (EMSEC), which is a subset of communications security (COMSEC).
Sensitive compartmented information (SCI) is a type of United States classified information concerning or derived from sensitive intelligence sources, methods, or analytical processes. All SCI must be handled within formal access control systems established by the Director of National Intelligence.
The Puzzle Palace is a book written by James Bamford and published in 1982. It is the first major, popular work devoted entirely to the history and workings of the National Security Agency (NSA), a United States intelligence organization. The title refers to a nickname for the NSA, which is headquartered in Fort Meade, Maryland. In addition to describing the role of the NSA and explaining how it was organized, the book exposed details of a massive eavesdropping operation called Operation Shamrock. According to security expert Bruce Schneier, the book was popular within the NSA itself, as "the agency's secrecy prevents its employees from knowing much about their own history".
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. One is to refer to a system that is adequate to protect itself from subversion and has robust mechanisms to separate information domains, that is, trustworthy. Another context is to refer to an application of a computer that will require the computer to be strong enough to protect itself from subversion and possess adequate mechanisms to separate information domains, that is, a system we must trust. This distinction is important because systems that need to be trusted are not necessarily trustworthy.
Data remanence is the residual representation of digital data that remains even after attempts have been made to remove or erase the data. This residue may result from data being left intact by a nominal file deletion operation, by reformatting of storage media that does not remove data previously written to the media, or through physical properties of the storage media that allow previously written data to be recovered. Data remanence may make inadvertent disclosure of sensitive information possible should the storage media be released into an uncontrolled environment.
In literature, redaction is a form of editing in which multiple sources of texts are combined and altered slightly to make a single document. Often this is a method of collecting a series of writings on a similar theme and creating a definitive and coherent work.
The United States government classification system is established under Executive Order 13526, the latest in a long series of executive orders on the topic beginning in 1951. Issued by President Barack Obama in 2009, Executive Order 13526 replaced earlier executive orders on the topic and modified the regulations codified to 32 C.F.R. 2001. It lays out the system of classification, declassification, and handling of national security information generated by the U.S. government and its employees and contractors, as well as information received from other governments.
Multiple single-level or multi-security level (MSL) is a means to separate different levels of data by using separate computers or virtual machines for each level. It aims to give some of the benefits of multilevel security without needing special changes to the OS or applications, but at the cost of needing extra hardware.
Redaction is the removal of sensitive information from a document to allow its distribution.
Electronic discovery refers to discovery in legal proceedings such as litigation, government investigations, or Freedom of Information Act requests, where the information sought is in electronic format. Electronic discovery is subject to rules of civil procedure and agreed-upon processes, often involving review for privilege and relevance before data are turned over to the requesting party.
Anti–computer forensics or counter-forensics are techniques used to obstruct forensic analysis.
Investigative Data Warehouse (IDW) is a searchable database operated by the FBI. It was created in 2004. Much of the nature and scope of the database is classified. The database is a centralization of multiple federal and state databases, including criminal records from various law enforcement agencies, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), and public records databases. According to Michael Morehart's testimony before the House Committee on Financial Services in 2006, the "IDW is a centralized, web-enabled, closed system repository for intelligence and investigative data. This system, maintained by the FBI, allows appropriately trained and authorized personnel throughout the country to query for information of relevance to investigative and intelligence matters."
Record sealing is the process of making public records inaccessible to the public.
Data erasure is a software-based method of data sanitization that aims to completely destroy all electronic data residing on a hard disk drive or other digital media by overwriting data onto all sectors of the device in an irreversible process. By overwriting the data on the storage device, the data is rendered irrecoverable.
Metadata removal tool or metadata scrubber is a type of privacy software built to protect the privacy of its users by removing potentially privacy-compromising metadata from files before they are shared with others, e.g., by sending them as e-mail attachments or by posting them on the Web.
Thomas Andrews Drake is a former senior executive of the National Security Agency (NSA), a decorated United States Air Force and United States Navy veteran, and a whistleblower. In 2010, the government alleged that Drake mishandled documents, one of the few such Espionage Act cases in U.S. history. Drake's defenders claim that he was instead being persecuted for challenging the Trailblazer Project. He is the 2011 recipient of the Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling and co-recipient of the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence (SAAII) award.
Computer security compromised by hardware failure is a branch of computer security applied to hardware. The objective of computer security includes protection of information and property from theft, corruption, or natural disaster, while allowing the information and property to remain accessible and productive to its intended users. Such secret information could be retrieved by different ways. This article focus on the retrieval of data thanks to misused hardware or hardware failure. Hardware could be misused or exploited to get secret data. This article collects main types of attack that can lead to data theft.
Data sanitization involves the secure and permanent erasure of sensitive data from datasets and media to guarantee that no residual data can be recovered even through extensive forensic analysis. Data sanitization has a wide range of applications but is mainly used for clearing out end-of-life electronic devices or for the sharing and use of large datasets that contain sensitive information. The main strategies for erasing personal data from devices are physical destruction, cryptographic erasure, and data erasure. While the term data sanitization may lead some to believe that it only includes data on electronic media, the term also broadly covers physical media, such as paper copies. These data types are termed soft for electronic files and hard for physical media paper copies. Data sanitization methods are also applied for the cleaning of sensitive data, such as through heuristic-based methods, machine-learning based methods, and k-source anonymity.
