What term describes any change to the original data?

The term that describes any change to the original data is "data modification." This encompasses any alterations made to data, whether they are intended changes, such as edits or updates, or unintended changes that occur due to errors or corruption. Data modification can include a wide range of activities, such as altering text in a document, updating records in a database, or adjusting the parameters of a data set.

Understanding this concept is crucial in cybersecurity, as data integrity is a key focus. It is essential to ensure that data remains accurate and unaltered unless a legitimate modification is needed. Monitoring for unauthorized data modification is a critical aspect of data protection practices.

In contrast, data encryption refers to the process of encoding data to prevent unauthorized access, while data retrieval deals with accessing and extracting stored data. Data backup involves creating copies of data to ensure it is preserved in case of loss or corruption. While all these processes relate to data management, they do not encompass the broad definition of any change made to the original data.