G 0.46 Integrity Loss of Valuable Information

The integrity of information can be impaired by various causes, such as manipulation, human misconduct, misoperation of applications, software malfunctions, or transmission errors.

• Information loss can result from the aging of storage media.
• Transmission errors: Data transmission errors can occur during data transfer.
• Malware: Malicious software can alter or destroy entire data inventories.
• Input errors: Input errors can lead to unintended transactions that are often not noticed for a long time.
• Attackers can attempt to manipulate data for their purposes, for example to gain access to other IT systems or data inventories.
• By manipulating the index database, electronic archives can be induced to archive or retrieve forged documents.

If information is no longer intact, it can lead to a multitude of problems:

• In the simplest case, information can no longer be read and therefore further processed.
• Data can be accidentally or deliberately falsified in such a way that incorrect information is passed on. This can, for example, trigger transfers in the wrong amount or to the wrong recipients, the sender information of emails could be manipulated, or much more.
• If encrypted or compressed data sets lose their integrity (here a change of a single bit is sufficient), they may no longer be decryptable or decompressible.
• The same applies to cryptographic keys, where a change of a single bit is also sufficient to render the keys unusable. This in turn also means that data can no longer be decrypted or checked for authenticity.
• Documents stored in electronic archives lose evidentiary value if their integrity cannot be verified.