Organizations have an obligation to protect Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and often identify procedures for handling and retaining PII in data policies. If you’re planning to take the Security+ exam, you should have a basic understanding of data policies and how they can help protect data and prevent data leakage.
For example, can you answer this question?
Q. You need to transmit PII via email and you want to maintain its confidentiality. Of the following choices, what is the BEST solution?
A. Use hashes.
B. Encrypt it before sending.
C. Protect it with a digital signature.
D. Use RAID.
More, do you know why the correct answer is correct and the incorrect answers are incorrect? The answer and explanation is available at the end of this post.
Personally Identifiable Information
Personally Identifiable Information (PII) is personal information that can be used to personally identify an individual. Some examples of PII are:
- Full name
- Birthday and birth place
- Medical and health information
- Street or email address information
- Personal characteristics, such as biometric data
- Any type of identification number, such as a Social Security number (SSN) or driver’s license number
In general, you need two or more pieces of information to make it PII. For example, “John Smith” is not PII by itself because it can’t be traced back to a specific person. However, when you connect the name with a birth date, an address, medical information, or other data, it is PII.
When attackers gain PII, they often use it for financial gain at the expense of the individual. For example, attackers steal identities, access credit cards, and empty bank accounts. Whenever possible, organizations should minimize the use, collection, and retention of PII. If it’s not kept, it can’t be compromised. On the other hand, if a company collects PII and attackers compromise the data, the company is liable.
The number of security breach incidents resulting in the loss of PII continues to rise. For example, a Veterans Affairs (VA) employee copied a database onto his laptop that contained PII on over 26 million U.S. veterans. He took the laptop home and a burglar stole it. The VA then went through the painful and expensive process of notifying all of the people who were vulnerable to identity theft, and the affected individuals spent countless hours scouring their records for identity theft incidents. Even though police later recovered the laptop, the VA paid $20 million to settle a lawsuit in the case.
Chapter 5 of the CompTIA Security+: Get Certified Get Ahead: SY0-401 Study Guide mentioned several other instances, such as the attack on Sony’s PlayStation Network that compromised more than 77 million customer records, resulting in direct expense of over $171 million.
Each of these instances resulted in potential identity theft and the loss of goodwill and public trust of the company. Both customers and employees were negatively impacted, and the companies were forced to spend time and energy discussing the incident, and spend money trying to repair their reputations.
Protecting PII
Organizations have an obligation to protect PII. There are many laws that mandate the protection of PII, including international laws, federal laws, and local regulations. Organizations often develop policies to identify how they handle, retain, and distribute PII, and these policies help ensure they are complying with relevant regulations. When a company doesn’t use a specific PII policy, it usually identifies methods used to protect PII in related data policies.
Many laws require a company to report data losses due to security breaches. If an attack results in the loss of customer PII data, the company is required to report it and notify affected individuals. As an example, Arizona enacted a security breach notification law that requires any company doing business in Arizona to notify customers of security breaches. Most states in the United States have similar laws, and similar international laws exist.
The 601 Version of the Study Guide
The CompTIA Security+: Get Certified Get Ahead: SY0-601 Study GuideEach of the eleven chapters presents topics in an easy to understand manner and includes real-world examples of security principles in action.
You’ll understand the important and relevant security topics for the Security+ exam, without being overloaded with unnecessary details. Additionally, each chapter includes a comprehensive review section to help you focus on what’s important.
Over 300 realistic practice test questions with in-depth explanations will help you test your comprehension and readiness for the exam. The book includes:
- A 75 question pre-test
- A 75 question post-test
- Practice test questions at the end of every chapter.
Each practice test question includes a detailed explanation to help you understand the content and the reasoning behind the question. You’ll be ready to take and pass the exam the first time you take it.
If you plan to pursue any of the advanced security certifications, this guide will also help you lay a solid foundation of security knowledge. Learn this material, and you’ll be a step ahead for other exams. This SY0-601 study guide is for any IT or security professional interested in advancing in their field, and a must-read for anyone striving to master the basics of IT security.
One of the common reasons data seems to fall into the wrong hands is that employees don’t understand the risks involved. They may not realize the value of the data on a laptop, or they may casually copy PII data onto a USB flash drive. As mentioned previously, data classification and labeling procedures help employees recognize the data’s value, and help protect sensitive data.
Training is also important. One of the goals of security professionals is to reinforce the risks of not protecting PII. When employees understand the risks, they are less likely to risk customer and employee data to identity theft.
Additionally, if employees need to transmit PII over a network, they can ensure it’s protected by using encryption. As mentioned previously in this book, encrypting data in transit provides strong protection against loss of confidentiality.
Remember this
Personally Identifiable Information (PII) includes information such as a full name, birth date, biometric data, and identifying numbers such as a SSN. Organizations have an obligation to protect PII and often identify procedures for handling and retaining PII in data policies.
Q. You need to transmit PII via email and you want to maintain its confidentiality. Of the following choices, what is the BEST solution?
A. Use hashes.
B. Encrypt it before sending.
C. Protect it with a digital signature.
D. Use RAID.
Answer is B. You can maintain confidentiality of any data, including Personally Identifiable Information (PII) with encryption.
Hashes provide integrity, not confidentiality.
A digital signature provides authentication, non-repudiation, and integrity.
A redundant array of inexpensive disks (RAID) provides higher availability for a disk subsystem.
