These three letters stand for confidentiality, integrity, and availability, otherwise known as the CIA triad. The CIA triad is essential to protect information stored within an organization’s computer systems. In addition, security professionals use the CIA triad to understand and assess organizational risks-breaking down all the potential threats, vulnerabilities, and attacks within each section of the triad. For example, the ATM and bank software enforce data integrity by ensuring that any transfers or withdrawals made via the machine are reflected in the accounting for the user’s bank account. The CIA collects, evaluates, and disseminates vital information on economic, military, potential, scientific, and other developments abroad to safeguard national security. The difference between authorization and authentication is that authentication protect the validity of the user account by testing that the person accessing that account is who she/he say they are. For example, entering a username and password when you log in to a website. Entering the correct login information lets the website know 1) who you are and 2) that it is actually you are accessing the website. Authentication factors can be classified into three groups: something you know: a password or personal identification number (PIN); something you have: a token, such as a bank card; something you are, such as fingerprints and voice recognition. Meanwhile authorization means granting a user account configured on the computer system the right to make use of a resource. Authorization is the process to determine whether the authenticated user has access to the resources. It verifies your rights to grant you access to resources such as information, databases, files, etc. Let’s say you are traveling and you’re about to board a flight. When you show your ticket and some identification before checking in, you receive a boarding pass which confirms that the airport authority has authenticated your identity. But that’s not it. A flight attendant must authorize you to board the flight you’re supposed to be flying on, allowing you access to the inside the plane and its resources.