JAWAHARLAL NEHRU TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY HYDERABAD B.Tech III CYBER LAWS AND ETHICS Previous Question Paper (February/March - 2022 - R18)

Security threats are potential events or actions that can compromise the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of information systems. These threats can be broadly categorized into human-based, technical, and environmental factors.

1. Malware (Malicious Software): This includes viruses, worms, trojan horses, and ransomware designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system without the user's consent. Example: A user downloads a seemingly legitimate email attachment that contains ransomware, which encrypts all files on the hard drive and demands payment for the decryption key.

2. Phishing and Social Engineering: These involve manipulating individuals into divulging sensitive information such as passwords or financial details. Example: An attacker sends an email masquerading as a bank requesting the user to 'verify' their account credentials via a fake link, leading to identity theft.

3. Denial of Service (DoS/DDoS): An attempt to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by flooding it with excessive traffic. Example: A botnet of infected computers simultaneously sends millions of requests to an e-commerce website, causing the server to crash and preventing legitimate customers from making purchases.

4. Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) Attacks: An attacker secretly intercepts and relays messages between two parties who believe they are communicating directly with each other. Example: An attacker sets up a rogue Wi-Fi hotspot in a public cafe; when a user connects, the attacker captures the user's unencrypted login credentials as they are transmitted.

5. Insider Threats: These occur when individuals within an organization, such as employees or contractors, misuse their authorized access to harm the organization. Example: A disgruntled employee with database access deliberately deletes critical customer records before leaving the company.

6. SQL Injection: An attack where malicious SQL statements are inserted into entry fields for execution, potentially allowing unauthorized access to backend databases. Example: An attacker inputs a specially crafted string into a website login form that tricks the database into bypassing authentication and granting administrative access.

Information protection is the practice of safeguarding sensitive data from unauthorized access, corruption, or theft throughout its entire lifecycle. It involves a combination of technical, administrative, and physical controls to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information assets.

The core pillars of information protection include:

• Confidentiality: Ensuring that information is accessible only to those authorized to have access.
• Integrity: Maintaining the accuracy and completeness of data, preventing unauthorized modification.
• Availability: Ensuring that authorized users have reliable and timely access to information when needed.

Access control is the fundamental mechanism used to enforce information protection by regulating who or what can view or use resources in a computing environment. It operates through three primary functions: identification, authentication, and authorization.

Key components of access control systems include:

• Identification: The process of claiming an identity (e.g., a username).
• Authentication: The process of verifying the claimed identity, typically using passwords, biometrics, or multi-factor authentication (MFA).
• Authorization: The process of granting or denying specific permissions to an authenticated user based on defined security policies.

Common access control models include:

• Discretionary Access Control (DAC): The resource owner determines who has access.
• Mandatory Access Control (MAC): Access is restricted based on system-wide security labels and clearances, common in high-security environments.
• Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Access is granted based on the user's specific role within an organization rather than individual identity.
• Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC): Access decisions are made by evaluating attributes (user, resource, environment) against policies.

Effective implementation of these concepts requires a defense-in-depth strategy, incorporating encryption, firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and regular security audits to mitigate risks from both internal and external threats.