Data that has been stored and cannot be read is known as

Data that has been stored and cannot be read is known as

• A. Corrupt data
• B. Encrypted data
• C. Archived data
• D. Lost data

Answer: (A)

Corrupted data. When data has been stored and later cannot be read because its integrity has been damaged, it’s considered corrupted. This damage can result from hardware failures, power outages, software bugs, or transmission/storage errors that alter the bits, producing garbled or invalid results. Encryption, by contrast, hides content until the correct key is used, so it’s unreadable by design but not due to damage. Archived data is preserved for long-term use and should be readable, while lost data refers to data that cannot be found at all, not data that is unreadable.

Corrupted data. When data has been stored and later cannot be read because its integrity has been damaged, it’s considered corrupted. This damage can result from hardware failures, power outages, software bugs, or transmission/storage errors that alter the bits, producing garbled or invalid results. Encryption, by contrast, hides content until the correct key is used, so it’s unreadable by design but not due to damage. Archived data is preserved for long-term use and should be readable, while lost data refers to data that cannot be found at all, not data that is unreadable.