Sneha Chideti New England College Database Security

Sneha Chideti
New England College
Database Security
Data Integrity
According to Brook (2019), data integrity is the accuracy and validity of data over its life
cycle. It implies that data is not tampered with and different parties can trust it. On the other
hand, data breach refers to the exposure of sensitive organization information to the hands of
unauthorized persons or to the public. Since most of this data is sensitive, the organization can
face several negative repercussions to a breach such as law suits, loss of reputation, penalties
among other. Since data integrity can be compromised via a variety of ways, mechanisms should
be put in place by the organization in order to verify the validity and integrity of data sent and
received. These measures include error checking, use of signatures, etc. protecting data integrity
is a vital activity that aids the organization in recoverability, connectivity, searchability, and
traceability while increasing stability, performance, reusability and maintainability.
Several ways can be used to compromise data such as attacks using malware, human
error, transfer error, compromised storage device, among others. In databases, data integrity
should be assessed in entity integrity, referential integrity, domain integrity and user-defined
integrity. In the recent ages where organizations are faced with numerous cyber-attacks, data
breaches have become the norm of the day. According to MacRae (2020), 75% of large
businesses had suffered data breaches in the year 2019. “We also searched the medical-related
literature to identify relevant phishing-related publications. Results During the 1-month testing
period, the organization received 858 200 emails: 139 400 (16%) marketing, 18 871 (2%)
identified as potential threats. Of 143 million internet transactions, around 5 million (3%) were
suspected threats. 468 employee email addresses were identified from public data and targeted
through phishing using a range of payloads including attachments and malicious links; however,
no credentials were recovered or malicious files downloaded” (Priestman et al., 2019).
To ensure data integrity the organization need to identify its data, know the purpose
played by its data, understand openly who handles or uses each and every data, maintain data
logs regarding changes made to the data, and track the lineage of the data to confirm the
legitimacy of the source. Furthermore, organizations should validate their data at she source,
implement an end-to-end lineage, perform consistency checks, set data usage and access
controls, comply with the set rules and regulations such as HIPAA, CCPA, and GDPR among
other measures. A good example of a devastating data breach is that of Equifax which happened
in 2017. The attacker stole data which held information on millions of customers of the USA.
This data constituted of personal information such as social security numbers, driver’s license
numbers, names, residence addresses, dates of birth, credit card numbers among others
(Fruhlinger, 2020). After the breach, Equifax spent $1.4 billion in order to perform the cleanup
costs as well as facing lawsuits which demanded it to pay $1.38 billion which was to be used to
resolve consumer claims. “in 2017, Equifax, one of the largest consumer credit reporting
agencies announced that it has a data breach that exposed nearly 145 million us …” (Rogue,
2019)
Data integrity should be protected like the pupil’s eye and each organization should
deploy the best data protection measures which aims at mitigating the data breaches.
Organizations can exploit the aforementioned methods to mitigate the risks and threats presented
by data integrity. More so, the company may consider using two-factor authentication,
encryption methods, as well as educating its staff regarding proper handling of data.
Reference
Brook, C. (2019). What is Data Integrity? Definition, Best Practices & More. Retrieved from
https://digitalguardian.com/blog/what-data-integrity-data-protection-101
Fruhlinger, J. (2020). Equifax data breach FAQ: What happened, who was affected, what was
the impact? Retrieved from https://www.csoonline.com/article/3444488/equifax-data-
breach-faq-what-happened-who-was-affected-what-was-the-impact.html
MacRae, D. (2019). 75% of Large Businesses Suffered Security Breaches in 2019. Retrieved
from https://digit.fyi/75-of-large-businesses-suffered-security-breaches-in-2019/
Priestman, W., Anstis, T., Sebire, I. G., Sridharan, S., & Sebire, N. J. (2019). Phishing in
healthcare organisations: threats, mitigation and approaches. BMJ health & care
informatics, 26(1).
Roque, G. (2019). Rethinking the FTC's Role and Abilities in Protecting Consumer Data in the
Wake of the Equifax Breach. Sw. L. Rev., 48, 545.

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Sneha Chideti

New England College

traceability while increasing stability, performance, reusability and maintainability.

no credentials were recovered or malicious files downloaded” (Priestman et al., 2019).

the impact? Retrieved from https://www.csoonline.com/article/3444488/equifax-data-

Wake of the Equifax Breach. Sw. L. Rev., 48, 545.

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