If an attacker breaks into a corporate database and modifies critical financial data this is an attack against the ________ of the data.

Question

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

The CIA triad identifies integrity as the property ensuring data is accurate, complete, and unaltered, so an attacker who modifies financial records is attacking integrity.

Relevant knowledge points and concepts:
- CIA triad: Confidentiality (preventing unauthorized reading), Integrity (preventing unauthorized modification), Availability (ensuring access when needed).
- Authentication: verifying an entity’s identity (who you are).
- Auditing: logging and reviewing system actions and changes for accountability.
- Integrity controls: checksums, hashes, digital signatures, access controls, backups.

Step-by-step reasoning:
1. The scenario: an attacker breaks into a corporate database and modifies critical financial data. The key action is modification of data rather than disclosure or denial of access.
2. Map the action to the triad: modification = unauthorized change to the state of data → this fits the definition of an integrity violation.
3. Consequences of integrity breach: financial reports become incorrect, decisions based on corrupted data are wrong, regulatory reports can be falsified. This demonstrates loss of trustworthiness and accuracy—core aspects of integrity.
4. Preventive/detective controls relevant to integrity include cryptographic hashing, digital signatures, checksums, strict write-access controls, transaction logging, and reliable backups to restore original data.

Why the correct answer is correct:
- Integrity specifically protects against unauthorized or accidental alteration. Since the attacker altered data values, they undermined the data’s integrity directly.

Why the other choices are incorrect:
- Authentication: relates to verifying identities, not the property of the data itself.
- Auditing: is a process for recording/reviewing events; it may detect the attack but is not the property being attacked.
- Confidentiality: concerns preventing unauthorized disclosure; this scenario describes modification, not exposure.

Conclusion: The correct choice is integrity, which matches the provided answer.

If an attacker breaks into a corporate database and modifies critical financial data this is an attack against the ________ of the data.Single choice

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