Distinguish between vulnerability, threat, and control. List at least three kinds of harm a company could experience from electronic
espionage or unauthorized viewing of confidential company materials.
1.8 Exercises
1. Distinguish between vulnerability, threat, and control.
2. Theft usually results in some kind of harm. For example, if someone steals
your car, you may suffer financial loss, inconvenience (by losing your mode of
transportation), and emotional upset (because of invasion of your personal
property and space). List three kinds of harm a company might experience from
theft of computer equipment.
3. List at least three kinds of harm a company could experience from electronic
espionage or unauthorized viewing of confidential company materials.
4. List at least three kinds of damage a company could suffer when the integrity
of a program or company data is compromised.
5. List at least three kinds of harm a company could encounter from loss of
service, that is, failure of availability. List the product or capability to which
access is lost, and explain how this loss hurts the company.
6. Describe a situation in which you have experienced harm as a consequence of
a failure of computer security. Was the failure malicious or not? Did the attack
target you specifically or was it general and you were the unfortunate victim?
7. Describe two examples of vulnerabilities in automobiles for which auto
manufacturers have instituted controls. Tell why you think these controls are
effective, somewhat effective, or ineffective.
8. One control against accidental software deletion is to save all old versions of
a program. Of course, this control is prohibitively expensive in terms of cost of
storage. Suggest a less costly control against accidental software deletion. Is
your control effective against all possible causes of software deletion? If not,
what threats does it not cover?
9. On your personal computer, who can install programs? Who can change
operating system data? Who can replace portions of the operating system? Can
any of these actions be performed remotely?
10. Suppose a program to print paychecks secretly leaks a list of names of employees
earning more than a certain amount each month. What controls could be instituted to
limit the vulnerability of this leakage?
11. Preserving confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data is a restatement of the
concern over interruption, interception, modification, and fabrication. How do the
first three concepts relate to the last four? That is, is any of the four equivalent to one
or more of the three? Is one of the three encompassed by one or more of the four?
12. Do you think attempting to break in to (that is, obtain access to or use of) a
computing system without authorization should be illegal? Why or why not?
13. Describe an example (other than the ones mentioned in this chapter) of data
whose confidentiality has a short timeliness, say, a day or less. Describe an example
of data whose confidentiality has a timeliness of more than a year.
14. Do you currently use any computer security control measures? If so, what?
Against what attacks are you trying to protect?
15. Describe an example in which absolute denial of service to a user (that is, the user
gets no response from the computer) is a serious problem to that user.
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