Certified Incident Handler (CIH) Practice Ecam

What encoding scheme did Martin implement to secure email attachments and user credentials?

1. UTF-8 encoding

2. Base64 encoding

3. Hexadecimal encoding

4. Binary encoding

The correct answer is: Base64 encoding

Base64 encoding is a widely used scheme for encoding binary data in an ASCII string format by translating it into a radix-64 representation. This technique is particularly useful for securing email attachments and user credentials, as it allows binary data to be safely transmitted over protocols that might only support ASCII, such as email. When encoding data in Base64, every three bytes of binary data are converted into four ASCII characters. This not only ensures that the data remains intact during transport but also helps in obfuscating the actual contents of the data, providing a layer of security. This is essential for email, where attachments may be subjected to various filters and systems that may result in data corruption if binary data is not properly encoded. In contrast, the other encoding schemes listed do not provide the same level of security or compatibility in the context of email attachments. UTF-8 is designed for text encoding and is not meant for encoding binary attachments. Hexadecimal encoding could increase data size and isn’t typically used for embedding emails securely. Binary encoding, while it represents data in its raw form, fails to ensure compatibility with text-based systems and may lead to data loss or corruption in transit.