CIA TRIAD — INTERACTIVE SIMULATION
// scenario: you are the IT security lead at BankVault PLC — a retail bank with 200,000 customers
🔒 CONFIDENTIALITY
🛡️ INTEGRITY
📡 AVAILABILITY
● CONFIDENTIALITY — Keep data secret from unauthorised users
A bank employee calls asking for access to customer records. Meanwhile, an unknown external party is also requesting the same data. Your job: set the access level, apply encryption, and control who sees what — and what an attacker gets if they intercept the data.
ACCESS CONTROL SIMULATION
SELECT ACCESS LEVEL
PUBLIC
TELLER
MANAGER
ADMIN
ENCRYPTION AT REST
OFF — Plaintext storage
BANKVAULT CUSTOMER DATABASE
| ID | NAME | ACC NO | BALANCE | CARD NO |
|---|
WHAT IS HAPPENING?
ATTACK SIMULATOR
WHAT IF AN ATTACKER INTERCEPTS THIS DATA IN TRANSIT?
COUNTERMEASURES STATUS
● INTEGRITY — Ensure data is accurate and unmodified
A suspicious modification has been flagged in the transaction processing system. Your job: use cryptographic hashing to verify data integrity, detect tampering, and restore the original values from a verified backup.
LIVE TRANSACTION RECORD
| FIELD | VALUE |
|---|---|
| Transaction ID | TXN-2024-88821 |
| From | ACC-001 — James Webb |
| To | ACC-447 — Sophie Chen |
| Amount (£) | |
| Timestamp | 2024-11-14 09:32:17 UTC |
| Authorised By | sarah.manager |
| Status | VERIFIED |
VERIFIED BACKUP (READ-ONLY)
| FIELD | ORIGINAL VALUE |
|---|---|
| Amount (£) | £1,000.00 |
| SHA-256 |
a3f9c2b1d4e6f0a7b8c3d5e9f2a4b6c8d0e1f3a5b7c9d2e4f6a8b0c1d3e5f7a9
SHA-256 HASH VERIFICATION
CURRENT HASH (recalculated live)
a3f9c2b1d4e6f0a7b8c3d5e9f2a4b6c8d0e1f3a5b7c9d2e4f6a8b0c1d3e5f7a9
ORIGINAL HASH (from backup)
a3f9c2b1d4e6f0a7b8c3d5e9f2a4b6c8d0e1f3a5b7c9d2e4f6a8b0c1d3e5f7a9
✅ HASH MATCH — Transaction data is INTACT. Integrity verified.
⛔ HASH MISMATCH — Data has been TAMPERED. Integrity violation detected!
HOW HASHING WORKS
A hash function like SHA-256 takes any input and produces a unique fixed-length fingerprint.
Change even one character in the data — even a single digit — and the hash changes completely. This is how we detect tampering without storing the original data in a visible way.
Banks hash every transaction. If an insider tries to quietly change a balance, the hash mismatch triggers an immediate alert.
Change even one character in the data — even a single digit — and the hash changes completely. This is how we detect tampering without storing the original data in a visible way.
Banks hash every transaction. If an insider tries to quietly change a balance, the hash mismatch triggers an immediate alert.
INTEGRITY LOG
[09:32:17] Transaction TXN-2024-88821 created
[09:32:17] SHA-256 hash generated and stored
[09:32:18] Transaction written to immutable ledger
[09:32:18] ✓ Integrity baseline established
[09:32:17] SHA-256 hash generated and stored
[09:32:18] Transaction written to immutable ledger
[09:32:18] ✓ Integrity baseline established
● AVAILABILITY — Systems must be accessible when authorised users need them
It is 9:00 AM Monday. 12,000+ customers are trying to access BankVault online banking. Your monitoring system fires an alert — a DDoS attack is incoming. Bots are flooding the servers. Your job: watch it happen, deploy protection, and restore service.
SYSTEM UPTIME
99.9%
ACTIVE CUSTOMERS
12,847
THREAT LEVEL
LOW
PRIMARY SERVER
ONLINE
LOAD: 42%
SECONDARY SERVER
ONLINE
LOAD: 38%
BACKUP SERVER
STANDBY
LOAD: 5%
ATTACK CONTROL PANEL
NETWORK EVENT LOG
[09:00:00] All systems operational
[09:00:00] Monitoring 12,847 active customer sessions
[09:00:01] Awaiting events...
[09:00:00] Monitoring 12,847 active customer sessions
[09:00:01] Awaiting events...
UNDERSTANDING AVAILABILITY
Availability means your systems work when users need them. A DDoS attack (Distributed Denial of Service) floods your server with millions of fake requests — so real customers cannot get through.
Your countermeasures:
• IPS — detects and blocks attack traffic automatically
• WAF — filters malicious HTTP requests at the edge
• Redundant servers — if primary fails, secondary takes over
• UPS — battery backup if power fails
• Backups — restore data if servers are destroyed
Without availability, perfect confidentiality and integrity are useless — nobody can access the system at all.
Your countermeasures:
• IPS — detects and blocks attack traffic automatically
• WAF — filters malicious HTTP requests at the edge
• Redundant servers — if primary fails, secondary takes over
• UPS — battery backup if power fails
• Backups — restore data if servers are destroyed
Without availability, perfect confidentiality and integrity are useless — nobody can access the system at all.