Evaluation of Data Quality: A Cryptographic Approach

Abstract

The computer systems are a key point for decision making in any company that intends to be competitive. This is because these systems are based on the management of data by generating useful information in the decision-making process. In this context, it is necessary that the information generated comes from data with the appropriate quality, being integrity one of the most relevant attributes. Diverse approaches and methods have been studied in the bibliography, which pursue as fundamental objectives to identify the scenarios where problems can be triggered in the quality of the data, as well as to define methods and mechanisms to guarantee and measure it. However, the scenario where quality is affected due to security threats is not taken into account in the analyzed works. The article is based on the general criteria of safety as an attribute of quality of any computer system, particularizing in a data security approach as an attribute of the quality of these. The main contribution lies in the definition of a new security context in which data quality problems can arise. A resistant method to attacks is proposed to measure the quality of the data, based on cryptographic mechanisms. In addition, an analysis is made of the incidence of the proposed method in the response times of the system. The results obtained in the experimentation show that the increases of the times are not significant, so they do not appreciably affect the system availability.