It is usually
followed by the identity crime,where somebody (not
necessarily the original attacker) makes use of that information
for impersonating the victim, usually for the purpose of pecuniary
gain. In the context of this book, it is natural to associate
identity with some software artifact, such as the credentials we
use for accessing our Web banking application or our online
payment account details. Nonetheless, the phenomenon is
much bigger in scope, and bad things can happen even without
any direct involvement of the victim with computer systems. See
the ???America and Identity Theft??? sidebar for more details on this
subject. In the remainder of this section, we show how the various
considerations mentioned so far culminate in the main
threats to the con?¬?dentiality of our data.
Many different kinds of sensitive information transit or get stored
in our computers: ?¬?nancial data, addresses, identi?¬?cation numbers,
and above all, credentials and credit card numbers. The
life cycle of the information include various phases: the moment
in which it is entered, the moment in which it is transported, the
moment in which it is processed, and the moment in which it
gets stored.
Pages:
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54