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Showing posts from February, 2024

From a secrecy model of information security to a usage authentication model

We continue to be plagued by data breaches, password and credit card dumps, healthcare records...etc. One of the reasons many of these breaches continue to be devastating and effective for cyber criminals is because our current information use infrastructure/architecture relies on secrecy as the primary mode for preventing the misuse of information. Secrecy simply means only the people who have the right to use a bit of information have access to it, when that assumption breaks down as it does with data breaches, the related information can lose some or all its value. For instance a compromised credit/debit card number means getting a new number. A compromised password database means changing the passwords...etc Secrecy has its use as a privacy preserving mechanism but is fairly flawed as an information usage authentication mechanism. The idea of secrecy as the mechanism for controlling the use of information is deeply ingrained, so much so that even people who should know better often