Cisco Cyber Security Practice Exam 2025 – Your All-in-One Guide to Exam Success!

Using hashes or checksums is an effective method to validate that data has not been altered after an analysis. This technique involves generating a unique string of characters, known as a hash value or checksum, based on the original data. Once the hash is created, any subsequent changes to the data would result in a different hash value when it is recalculated. This provides a straightforward way to verify data integrity; if the hash values match, it confirms that the data remains unchanged.

This method is widely used in various applications, including file transfers, software downloads, and data storage, because it is efficient and reliable for detecting even the smallest alterations.

Backup copies are useful for data recovery but do not inherently verify whether the data has been changed after analysis. Error logs track events and identify issues but do not provide a means to validate data integrity directly. Data compression tools facilitate storage efficiency but do not contribute to ensuring the authenticity or unaltered state of the original data post-analysis.