What are the differences between message confidentiality and message integrity? Can you have confidentiality without integrity? Can you have integrity without confidentiality?
- message confidentiality
- Two or more hosts communicate securely, typically using encryption. The communication cannot be monitored (sniffed) by untrusted hosts. The communication between trusted parties is confidential.
- message integrity
- The message transported has not been tampered with or altered. A message has integrity when the payload sent is the same as the payload received.
Sending a message confidentially does not guarantee data integrity. Even when two nodes have authenticated each other, the integrity of a message could be compromised during the transmission of a message.
Yes, you can have integrity of a message without confidentiality. One can take a hash or sum of the message on both sides to compare. Often we share downloadable files and provide data integrity using md5 hash sums.