IPA IP 2020 Question 90
A question IPA Japan published in 令和2年度 10月 ITパスポート試験 公開問題 問90, translated into English. ITPEC is based on the same exams.
Which of the following represents the property of hardware or other such things that makes it difficult for the internal data to be tampered with, decoded, extracted, or otherwise attacked illegitimately from outside?
Explanation
Tamper resistance — the property of hardware or software that resists attempts to read, extract or alter its internal data from outside.
An IC card, a TPM chip or a hardware security module keeps keys and other secrets inside. Tamper-resistant designs make attacks on them hard: the chip erases its data when the package is opened, its internals are obscured so they cannot be probed, and it withstands analysis of its power consumption or timing. Software can be made tamper resistant too, for example by obfuscating its code.
Answer (d)
Why not others:
- •(a) Availability — authorized users can use the information or system whenever they need it
- •(b) Reliability — the system or its processing behaves consistently as intended, without failures
- •(c) Accountability — the actions of an entity can be traced back to that entity, for example through logs
Key rule: Tamper resistance protects secrets inside a device even when an attacker has the device in hand; it is a physical and design-level defence.
Security · AI-written, may contain errors
This question comes from the past questions IPA Japan publishes, translated into English by ITPEC Practice. ITPEC Practice is an independent study tool and is not affiliated with IPA or ITPEC. See the original paper (PDF) or Report an issue.