Software Architecture in Practice, Third Edition

9. Security

With Jungwoo Ryoo and Phil Laplante

Your personal identity isn’t worth quite as much as it used to be—at least to thieves willing to swipe it. According to experts who monitor such markets, the value of stolen credit card data may range from $3 to as little as 40 cents. That’s down tenfold from a decade ago—even though the cost to an individual who has a credit card stolen can soar into the hundreds of dollars.

—Forbes.com (Taylor Buley. “Hackonomics,” Forbes.com, October 27, 2008, www.forbes.com/2008/10/25/credit-card-theft-tech-security-cz_tb1024theft.html)

Security is a measure of the system’s ability to protect data and information from unauthorized access while still providing access to people and systems that are authorized. ...