Glossary

Every term explained twice: once simply, once properly.

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Cache poisoning

Slipping a fake page into the address book so people go to the wrong house.

An attack that inserts forged DNS responses into a resolver’s cache, redirecting users to attacker-controlled addresses.

Confidentiality

Only the right people can read it.

Assurance that data is accessible only to authorised parties, usually through encryption and access control.

Digital signature

A seal only you can make, but anyone can check.

Cryptographic proof, made with a private key and verified with the matching public key, that data came from the signer and was not changed.

DNS

The internet’s address book. You ask for a name, it tells you the house number.

Domain Name System: translates human-readable names (eli10cyber.com) into IP addresses computers use to connect.

DNSSEC

A wax seal on the address book’s answer, so you know nobody swapped it.

DNS Security Extensions: adds digital signatures to DNS records so resolvers can verify they are authentic and unaltered.

DS record

A note in the parent’s book saying “this is my child’s real seal”.

Delegation Signer record: a hash of a child zone’s key, stored in the parent zone, linking the chain of trust.

Integrity

Nobody changed it on the way.

Assurance that data has not been altered by unauthorised parties. One of the CIA triad.