The basics of cybersecurity

This book aims to marry two important fields of research: cybersecurity and ML. We will present a brief overview of cybersecurity, how it is defined, what the end goals are, and what problems arise.

Traditional principles of cybersecurity

The fundamental aim of cybersecurity is to keep users and data safe. Traditionally, the goals of cybersecurity were three-fold: confidentiality, integrity, and availability, the CIA triad.

Let us now examine each of these in depth.

Confidentiality

The confidentiality goal aims to keep data secret from unauthorized parties. Only authorized entities should have access to data.

Confidentiality can be achieved by encrypting data. Encryption is a process where plain-text data is coded into a ciphertext using an encryption key. The ciphertext is not human-readable; a corresponding decryption key is needed to decode the data. Encryption of information being sent over networks prevents attackers from reading the...