ISSC452 W1: Cybersecurity Fundamentals | Disc Peer Response| Julian

Good evening everyone,

In an Automated Teller Machine (ATM) system, several key security requirements are essential to ensure the system’s overall security and reliability. These requirements include confidentiality, integrity, and availability, each playing a crucial role in safeguarding the ATM and its users’ information.

Confidentiality is a fundamental requirement for ATMs, as they handle sensitive information such as Personal Identification Numbers (PINs) and bank account details. Protecting this information from unauthorized access is critical to prevent fraud and identity theft. To achieve confidentiality, ATMs utilize various security mechanisms such as encryption to ensure that data is encrypted both at rest and in transit. This ensures that even if the data is intercepted, it remains unreadable to unauthorized parties.

Integrity is another important security requirement for ATMs, ensuring that data is accurate and has not been altered or tampered with. Maintaining data integrity is essential to prevent unauthorized modifications to account balances or transaction records, which could lead to financial loss or fraudulent activity. To ensure integrity, ATMs employ techniques such as checksums and digital signatures to verify the integrity of data before processing it.

Availability is also a critical security requirement for ATMs, ensuring that the system is accessible and operational when needed. Downtime or disruptions to ATM services can inconvenience users and lead to financial losses for both users and banks. To ensure availability, ATMs are designed with redundancy and failover mechanisms to minimize the impact of hardware failures or network outages. Additionally, regular maintenance and monitoring help ensure that the ATM system remains operational and available to users.

While all three security requirements are important, confidentiality stands out as particularly critical for ATMs due to the sensitive nature of the information they handle. However, a balance must be struck between these requirements to ensure that the ATM system remains secure, reliable, and accessible to users.