What is security by obscurity?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Suppose a thief who wants to break into a bank plans to attack during a shift change of the security guards at night. When the thief observes the guards, however, he finds that the guards do not change shifts at the same time each night. On Monday they rotate shifts at 11:15 P.M., whereas on Tuesday the shift change occurs at 10:50 P.M., and on Wednesday it is at 11:25 P.M. He cannot determine the times of these changes because they are kept secret. The thief, not knowing when a change takes place, cannot detect a clear pattern of times. Because the shift changes are confusing and not well known, an attack becomes more difficult.This technique is sometimes called "security by obscurity."Obscuring what goes on inside a system or organization and avoiding clear patterns of behavior make attacks from the outside much more difficult.