What are the fundamental objectives of Information Security? And how do these work to protect your business’ critical data? Read this post and find out more?
CIA Triad: The Fundamental Objectives Of Information Security
In the world of information security, we often hear the term “CIA Triad.” CIA represents something we strive to attain. It refers to confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
These 3 are the unifying attributes of an information security program. Moreover, each of these attributes represents a fundamental objective of information security.
But, what does each of these attributes means? And how important are they? Well, let’s discuss each one of them.
Confidentiality
Most of us don’t like to disclose financial or health information to strangers. Likewise, business owners don’t like the idea of disclosing their business’ critical information. Especially to competitors or cybercriminals.
Information is valuable. So, this is where confidentiality is essential. Confidentiality refers to the protection of information against unauthorized people and processes.
Every organization must remember that criminals always look for ways. And they’re prepared to exploit weak spots. It could be in the network designs, software, communication channels, or people.
Additionally, they’re not always outsiders. Even insiders may be tempted to secure copies of the information they have access to. Then use it for financial gain.
That’s why confidentiality is important. And it keeps any critical information from unauthorized access or use.
Integrity
Integrity is one of the highest ideals of personal character. A person with integrity lives life according to a code of ethics. Therefore we can trust him to behave in certain ways for a certain situation.
The same principle applies to information security. Integrity refers to the protection of information from intentional or accidental modification. Thus, you can rely upon that the information is the same as what it should be.
Additionally, integrity applies both to data and the system. Data integrity ensures that the information and programs are the same as it was. The changes only apply to a specified and authorized manner.
System integrity, on the other hand, makes sure to perform its intended function. Thus, giving the assurance that it’s free from deliberate unauthorized manipulation.
Availability
It’s the third component of the CIA triad. But what does it mean? Availability refers to the assurance that the stored information is available and accessible. But only by an authorized user, especially when needed.
If the authorized user cannot access the data he needs when he needs it. Then, it means it’s not secure. So, availability ensures that all authorized individuals can access the data at all times.
The following are threats to availability:
- Loss of processing ability due to natural disasters
- Hardware failures
- Programming errors
- Human errors
- Sickness, injury, or death of key personnel
- DDoS attacks, as well as
- Malicious codes
Safeguarding availability includes:
- Access controls
- Monitoring
- Data redundancy
- Virtualization
- Resilient systems
- Server clustering
- Environmental controls
- Operations planning continuity, and
- Incident response preparedness
Conclusion
We have discussed the fundamentals of information security. You may wonder which of them is the most important. However, as we can see, all these 3 are very important. Thus, organizations must allocate their resources proportionally.
