Asymmetric Keys and Security Attacks - danniel-giri/SEC-250 GitHub Wiki

Deliverable 1: Detail the following sections of the diagram, each with a paragraph (3-5 sentences). The sections are Key Creation (top left), Ensuring Confidentiality (bottom left), and Ensuring Authenticity (right).

Key Creation: When a key is created, a KDC generates a private key and a public key. The private key is kept secret and the public key is shared with other individuals. The sender's public key is used to encrypt messages, and the recipient's private key is used to decrypt the sent message. Your private key is used to sign the messages to prove it is you that sent it, and other people can use your public key to decrypt it. This is used in TLS and SSL encryption.

Ensuring Confidentiality: Only one public key works for each private key. The public key is used to encryt the data to make it unreadable for anyone without the matching private key. This makes sure that only the sender and intended recipient are able to access the sent message.

Ensuring Authenticity: The public key is used to send an encrypted message to a group of people and the private key is used to sign it. The recipient's private keys are then used to decrypt the message, and the public key is used to verify that the sender is who they say they are. If the recipient doesn't have the correct public and private keys, they are unable to see the decrypted data.

Research a recent security attack, exploit, break-in, or hack that occurred within the last two years. Then, write a short summary of the attack and include the source of your information.

Deliverable 1: What people or organizations were involved?

United Natural Foods, Inc. (UNFI) was breached on June 5th, 2025, with no confirmed threat actors yet but it is believed that the Scattered Spiders group was responsible for this attack.

Deliverable 2: How does the technology/vulnerability/malware work?

The attack used is suspected to be a ransomware attack caused by social-engineering, but UNFI didn't say what the true nature of the attack was.

Deliverable 3: What was impacted? What kind of data and/or how much money was taken?

Over 30,000 stores spanning over the U.S. and Canada were affected, leading to the loss of between 350 and 400 million USD. However, no PII or PHI was affected.

Deliverable 4: What steps could be taken to prevent similar attacks in the future?

Some steps to take in the future to prevent this kind of attack is making sure employees are given security-awareness training, MFA is implemented and enforced, incident response plans are made, and doing regular security audits.

Deliverable 5: How were the different areas of the CIA triad impacted?

Availability was majorly affected because 30,000 stores were unable to get the supplies they needed, employees lost work, and people were potentially unable to buy certain items from the affected stores. Integrity was also affected because these stores were unable to get the supplies they needed, which was due to their orders being cancelled and this caused a loss in profit for the stores as well as the affected company.

Works Cited:

UNFI cyberattack disrupts food distribution (2025). Case Study Summary –UNFI Cyberattack Disrupts Food Distribution (2025). (n.d.). https://sandiego.ascm.org/restrictedDoc/case__unfi_cyberattack_disrupts_food_distribution__2025_.pdf

What the UNFI Cyber Attack Reveals About Digital Risk. Alliant. (n.d.-a). https://alliant.com/news-resources/article-what-the-unfi-cyber-attack-reveals-about-digital-risk/