IT Baseline Protection Manual - The Information Warfare Site

Safeguard Catalogue - Personnel Remarks
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Use of cryptographic methods
Provided they are used properly, cryptographic methods are excellently suited
to countering the following threats:
- Disclosure of information to unauthorised persons
- Deliberate manipulation of data by unauthorised persons
- Manipulation of the authorship of information
The use of cryptography alone, however, is not sufficient to ward off all
threats.
- The use of cryptographic methods does not make any contribution to
guaranteeing the availability of data (if encryption is used inappropriately,
there is even a risk that data will be lost).
- Cryptographic methods cannot achieve anything against denial-of-service
attacks (see also T 5.28 Denial of services). They may play a part in the
early detection of such attacks, however.
- They also do not help to prevent the random corruption of information (for
example as a result of noise), but they can make it possible to detect
corruption retrospectively.
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IT-Baseline Protection Manual: Oktober 2000