Security Mechanism the specific means of implementing one or more security services

• feature designed to detect, prevent, or recover from a security attack
• no single mechanism that will support all services required
• however one particular element underlies many of the security mechanisms in use:
• cryptographic techniques hence our focus on this topic

Note these mechanisms span a wide range of technical components, but one aspect seen in many is the use of cryptographic techniques.

Security Mechanisms (X.800)

• specific security mechanisms:encipherment, digital signatures, access controls, data integrity, authentication exchange, traffic padding, routing control, notarization
• pervasive security mechanisms:trusted functionality, security labels, event detection, security audit trails, security recovery