Protecting Data at Rest with Device Encryption - focodecided/ops401-cybersecurity GitHub Wiki

From your day to day computer use, provide examples of when data is at rest and when it is in transit.

Data at Rest:

  • Documents, spreadsheets, presentations stored on my laptop's hard drive
  • Photos stored on my phone's storage
  • Emails stored in my Gmail inbox

Data in Transit:

  • Sending files as email attachments
  • Uploading photos from phone to cloud storage
  • Streaming movies/TV shows over the internet
  • Transferring files from laptop to external hard drive

Explain the role data encryption with regards to the CIA triad.

The CIA triad refers to Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability - three key principles of information security.

  1. Data encryption helps maintain confidentiality by encoding data so that only authorized parties can read it. This prevents unauthorized access to sensitive information.
  2. Encryption also supports integrity by detecting changes or tampering. An altered encrypted file will not properly decrypt with the right keys, signaling modification.
  3. Availability is less directly related, but proper encryption protocols help ensure data remains accessible to the right people when needed. Overall, encryption plays a crucial role in upholding all parts of the CIA triad.

Source: https://digitalguardian.com/blog/data-protection-data-in-transit-vs-data-at-rest