From the course: Performing a Technical Security Audit and Assessment

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Conduct file integrity checking

Conduct file integrity checking

From the course: Performing a Technical Security Audit and Assessment

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Conduct file integrity checking

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- [Instructor] Certain files should change only under authorized circumstances. For instance, sensitive medical records must only be altered by authorized healthcare professionals when updating patient information. However, some file changes can happen for malicious reasons, such as deliberate data manipulation or destruction, or as a result of malware infections. Also, accidental alterations can occur due to human error or data corruption. In any of these situations, organizations need to detect unauthorized changes in critical files, and that's where file integrity checks play a vital role. The most effective method for verifying file integrity involves using software capable of hashing files. Hashing is a process that converts data such as a file or a piece of text into a fixed length string of characters. This generates a unique digital fingerprint of a file in its contents. If any alteration occurs, even a single character change, the hash of the modified file will be completely…

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