Table 1 Common attacks on databases and description.
From: A Python library to check the level of anonymity of a dataset
Attack | Description |
|---|---|
Linkage | Consists of combining at least two anonymized databases in order to reveal the identity of some individuals present in both. |
Re-identification | This kind of attacks occurs when the anonymization process is reversed. |
Homogeneity | Can occur when all the values for a sensitive attribute in an equivalence class are identical. |
Background knowledge | In this case, the adversary has some foreknowledge about the target of the attack (e.g. knows some auxiliary information about an individual in the database). |
Skewness | Can be carried out when there is an unfrequent value for a sensitive attribute in the whole database which is extremely frequent in an equivalence class. |
Similarity | May occur when the values of a sensitive attribute in an equivalence class are semantically similar (although different). |
Inference | Consists of using data mining techniques in order to extract information from the data. |
