What is the primary benefit of enabling encryption for data in transit on a network?

Question

What is the primary benefit of enabling encryption for data in transit on a network?

1. A. It protects against physical theft of devices
2. B. It ensures that data is unreadable to attackers during transmission (Correct answer)
3. C. It improves the overall speed of data transfer
4. D. It prevents unauthorized users from accessing the network

Correct Answer

Option B — It ensures that data is unreadable to attackers during transmission

Detailed Solution & Explanation

The correct answer is It ensures that data is unreadable if intercepted.

Key Points

• Encryption in transit scrambles data while it travels across a network, so anyone capturing the traffic sees only ciphertext.
• It protects confidentiality on the wire — it does not stop interception, only makes the intercepted data useless.
• The distractors describe other controls: physical theft is addressed by encryption at rest and physical security, access control by authentication, and encryption slightly reduces speed rather than improving it.

Additional Information

• The two states to distinguish: data in transit (moving across a network, protected by TLS/HTTPS, VPNs, SSH) and data at rest (stored on disk, protected by full-disk or file-level encryption).
• HTTPS is HTTP carried over TLS, the successor to SSL; the padlock in a browser indicates the session is encrypted in transit.
• Encryption provides confidentiality; integrity requires hashing or a MAC, and authenticity requires certificates or digital signatures — three distinct goals often conflated.
• The CIA triad — Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability — is the standard framework for security questions.