Internet security plans are often described in terms of services provided by specific controls such as the following:

1. Access control
2. Encryption
3. System auditing
4. Authentication
5. Secure Electronic Transactions (SET)

The basic purpose of access control is to monitor access to information and sites. Example for its use might be:

1. Preventing employees from viewing coworker salary information
2. Preventing salespeople or competitors from seeing preliminary engineering research
3. Protecting private customer information, such as credit card numbers

Access control can also be used to allow specific levels of access to certain users. One user may be authorized only to read a file, whereas another user may be allowed to change the contents of that file.
You will learn about security tools to control access to files, directories, applications, databases, or network sectors in the MouseOver below.

Access Control Methods
In the next lesson, you will learn how encryption protects data.