Discussion board responses

Reply to 3 of classmate posts. Please do not repeat what they already have said. Elaborate. At least 100 words each

Post 1. By Eli

Question: Choose two regulations or laws that require (or strongly urge) encryption of data at rest or data in transit. Describe these regulations/laws and who they apply to.

The SC-28 1 and 2 controls apply to Federal information systems and organizations, and are created by the US Department of Commerce, specifically the National Institute of Standards and Technology. This states that there must be a way for these organizations to prove they have confidentiality and integrity of information at rest. The statement states that this includes configurations and rules for firewalls, gateways, intrusion detection/prevention systems, filtering routers, and authenticator content. It allows flexibility for the organizations, making it possible for them to implement and employ different mechanisms in order to reach said requirements. Whatever the mechanism is, its strength must match the security level or classification of the information it is protecting. Information can either be encrypted entirely, via entire all info on full hard disk, and encryption of specific flies on certain data structures like files, records, or fields. It adds these organizations should consider key management solutions.

ISO/IEC 19790:2012. This standard is an international standard which defines four security levels pertaining to cryptographic modules that provide security for sensitive data. Each increasing level ups the security classification, depending on the data, which can include low value administrative data, million-dollar funds transfers, life protecting data, personal identity information, and sensitive information used by government.

https://nvd.nist.gov/800-53/Rev4/control/SC-28

https://www.iso.org/standard/52906.html

Post 2. By Ryan

Question:

Some software uses a USB dongle for licensing purposes (Encase being one of those). Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this licensing approach.

A USB dongle is more or less a key to programs on a computer. So if there is a program on your computer that requires a dongle to be plugged in it won’t work without it. This is used as a licensing method. The dongle once plugged in allows the computer to run the program and the dongle controls how much the program can do an example of this is someone gets the standard package instead of the premium package so when they try to use a part of the program that requires premium the dongle will be like no you got the basic package this portion of the program will not work. It also controls what times the program can work as well as where. As with anything, there are advantages and disadvantages to a USB dongle.

The advantages of the dongle are it can be used on any device that you own theoretically so if someone has a home computer as well as a laptop to use while they are traveling they can use the programs on both without needing two licenses as the license is on the dongle, not the respective computer or laptop. It is harder to be stolen because as mentioned it can be location locked so if a customer or worker knows this they have no reason to try to steal it as they will not be able to use it. Multiple licenses can be put on a single dongle so there is no need to worry about using up all the USB drives on a computer. It can be updated online so there is no need to turn in the dongle every time a subscription needs to be updated or anything else.

As for disadvantages, it has a cost, in comparison to online subscriptions these cost more as they need to make the dongle so there are more production costs than other methods. As it is physical and small it can more easily be lost than an online subscription that is simply on the computer and for people that are prone to losing things it can be a turn off knowing that they will have to go through the hassle and cost of replacing one when they inevitably lose it. There can be compatibility problems not all things will work on every OS. The dongles can be given or sold to other people despite that it has location limitations sometimes. It also faces the problem of it could get cloned though that can be a problem with other licenses so it isn’t just a problem that these face.