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Data Integrity
Data integrity is all about making sure that the data stored in a computer system is accurate, consistent, and trustworthy. It's not about keeping data secret, but about ensuring it hasn't been accidentally corrupted or entered incorrectly.
Need to know
What you need to know
- **Integrity Focus:** Accuracy, consistency, and completeness of data.
- **Security Focus:** Confidentiality, availability, and protection against unauthorised access.
- **Example of Integrity Failure:** A power outage corrupts a customer database file, making records unreadable.
- **Example of Security Breach:** A hacker bypasses a firewall to steal the customer database file.
- An employee accidentally typing the wrong price for a product is an integrity issue. An ex-employee logging in to deliberately change prices is a security issue.
Explanation
Keeping Data Correct
- Data integrity means ensuring data is accurate and consistent. For example, a student's age must be a sensible positive number.
- Integrity is different from security. Integrity is about data quality (is it correct?), while security is about protection (is it safe from unauthorised access?).
- Validation is an automated check to see if data is reasonable before it's accepted. For instance, a system can validate that a postcode entry matches the UK format 'LLN NLL'.
- Verification is a check to ensure data has been copied correctly from one place to another. A common method is double entry, where you are asked to type your new password twice.