Papers dock

Security, Privacy and Data integrity

Question 1

A computer program makes use of data validation routines and verification of data input.

(a) Complete these two sentences about data validation and verification.

1. ................................................. checks that the data entered is reasonable. One example is

.................................................... .

2. ................................................. checks that the data entered is the same as the original. One
example is .................................................... . [4]

(b) The program is installed on a computer system that has security measures in place to protect its
data.

Question 2

(d) The company needs to keep the data on its servers secure from online threats.

(i) Describe how a firewall will help to protect the data on the servers from online threats.
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(ii) Give one additional security measure that the company can use to protect the data on the
servers from online threats.

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Question 3

(a) He wants to make sure the source code is secure on his laptop. Explain how encrypting the
source code can keep it secure.
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Question 4

(b) The software development company uses data backup and disk-mirroring to keep their data
secure. Explain how data backup and disk-mirroring allow the company to recover from data loss.

Data backup ............................................................................................................................................

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Disk-mirroring .........................................................................................................................................
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Question 5

Frankie is a software developer. He is developing a program to manage customer records for a client
with an online retail business. He must ensure that data stored about each customer are both secure
and private.

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(a) State the difference between security and privacy.
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(b) Computer systems can be protected by physical methods such as locks. Describe two non-
physical methods used to improve the security of computer systems.

1 .............................................................................................................................................................
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2 .............................................................................................................................................................
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(i) Describe how a parity block check can identify a bit that has been corrupted during transmission.
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(ii) Give a situation where a parity block check cannot identify corrupted bits.
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Question 6

ii) The supermarket is concerned about the security and integrity of the data on the server. Identify
two methods that can be used to minimise the security risk to the data, and one method to protect
the integrity of the data.

Security 1 ..........................................................................................................................................
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Security 2 ..........................................................................................................................................
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Integrity ...........................................................................................................................................
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Question 7

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(ii) Explain how you identified the error.

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(c) The data received can contain errors that are not detected using parity bits.

Explain how this can happen.

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(d) Parity is not the only method to verify the data has been sent correctly. Name and describe one
other method of data verification during data transfer.

Name .....................................................................................................................................................

Description .............................................................................................................................................
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Answer 8

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Question 9

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Question 10

(a) (i) Describe how the data logger calculates the parity bit for each of the bytes in the data block.
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(ii) State the two missing parity bits labelled A and B.

A = ..............................

B = .............................. [1]

(iii) Describe how the computer uses the parity byte to perform a further check on the received data
bytes. ......................................................................................................................................................
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...........................................................................................................................................................[2]

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(ii) Explain how you arrived at your answers for part (b)(i).
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Question 11

A Local Area Network is used by staff in a hospital to access data stored in a Database Management
System (DBMS). (a) Name two security measures to protect computer systems.

1 ............................................................................................................................................................

2 ........................................................................................................................................................ [2]

(b) A frequent task for staff is to key in new patient data from a paper document. The document
includes the patient’s personal ID number. (i) The Patient ID is a seven digit number. The database
designer decides to use a check digit to verify each foreign key value that a user keys in for a Patient
ID. When a user assigns a primary key value to a Patient ID, the DBMS adds a modulus-11 check
digit as an eighth digit. The DBMS uses the weightings 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 for calculating the check
digit. It uses 6 as the multiplier for the most significant (leftmost) digit.

Show the calculation of the check digit for the Patient ID with the first six digits 786531.

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Complete Patient ID ..........................................................................................................................[4]

(ii) Name and describe two validation checks that the DBMS could carry out on each primary key
value that a user keys in for a Patient ID.

1 Validation check ...................................................................................................................................

Description .............................................................................................................................................
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2 Validation check ..................................................................................................................................

Description ...........................................................................................................................................
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Question 12

A Local Area Network is used by school staff who access data stored in a Database Management
System (DBMS).

(a) (i) Explain the difference between security and privacy of data.
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(ii) Give an example for this application where privacy of data is a key concern.
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(b) Name and describe two security measures the Network Manager has in place to protect the
security of the data held in the DBMS.

1 ..............................................................................................................................................................
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2 ..............................................................................................................................................................
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(c) A task for staff at the start of the school year is to key in new pupil data from a paper document.
The data is entered to a screen form and includes the data verification of some fields.

Describe what is meant by verification.

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Question 13

A school stores a large amount of data that includes student attendance, qualification and contact
details. The school is setting up a relational database to store these data.

(b) The school needs to safeguard against any data loss.

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Describe three factors to consider when planning a backup procedure for the data.

Justify your decisions.

1 ..............................................................................................................................................................
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Question 14

A bank holds personal data about its customers and their financial data.

(a) Describe the difference between security and integrity of data.

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(b) Describe three security measures that the bank could implement to protect its electronic data.

Security measure 1 .................................................................................................................................

Description ............................................................................................................................................

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Security measure 2 ................................................................................................................................

Description .............................................................................................................................................

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Security measure 3 ................................................................................................................................

Description ..............................................................................................................................................

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Question 15

(c) Employees using the new computers receive training. At the end of the training, each employee
completes a series of questions.

Three answers given by an employee are shown below.

Explain why each answer is incorrect.

(i) “Encryption prevents hackers breaking into the company’s computers.”

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…………………….......................................................................................................................................[2]

(ii) “Data validation is used to make sure that data keyed in are the same as the original data
supplied.”

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(iii) “The use of passwords will always prevent unauthorised access to the data stored on the
computers”

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Question 16

(a) Give the definition of the terms firewall and authentication. Explain how they can help with the
security of data.

Firewall ....................................................................................................................................................

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Authentication ........................................................................................................................................

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(b) Describe two differences between data integrity and data security.

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(c) Data integrity is required at the input stage and also during transfer of the data.

(i) State two ways of maintaining data integrity at the input stage. Use examples to help explain
your answer.

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(ii) State two ways of maintaining data integrity during data transmission. Use examples to help
explain your answer.

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Question 17

(a) Give a brief description of each of the following terms:

Validation ..............................................................................................................................................

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Verification .............................................................................................................................................

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(b) Data are to be transferred between two devices. Parity checks are carried out on the data.

Explain what is meant by a parity check. Give an example to illustrate your answer.
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Question 18
(a) Explain the term computer virus.
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(b) A virus checker has been installed on a PC.

Give two examples of when a virus checker should perform a check.
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2 ..............................................................................................................................................................

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Question 19

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(i) There is one error in the transmission.

Indicate the byte number and bit number of the bit which has been incorrectly transmitted.

Byte number ........................................................................................................................................

Bit number ......................................................................................................................................[2]

(ii) Explain your answer to part (i).

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(b) Verification and validation can be applied during data entry.

Describe what is meant by these terms. For each method, explain why it is needed.

Verification .............................................................................................................................................

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Validation …………….................................................................................................................................

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Question 20

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Question 21

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Question 22

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Question 23

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Question 24

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