Name: Dae’lyn Bellamy
Date: 9/18/2022

The CIA Triad Write-UP

Today I will be describing what the CIA triad is and why it is important for a business to follow. I
will also be discussing the difference between authentication and authorization in this write-up.
Note that the CIA triad stands for confidentiality, Integrity, and availability. Now let’s begin with
describing the difference between authentication and authorization since you’ll need to
understand this before we can continue.

Authentication and authorization
Let’s start with Authentication, authentication is the process by which a security system
determines whether you are who you say you are. Authorization on the other hand proves that
you have access to a certain system or area of a building. To visualize this and to give you a
better idea of what I mean I will be giving an example of the two. Let us say someone wants to
enter a company’s server room that is restricted to all nonessential personnel in order to enter
the room they’ll need to do a retina scan. This would be an example of authorization since the
retina scan proves who they are. Now an example of authorization would be if you wanted to
enter the server room and asked to swipe your ID card and then you were let in, this shows that
you have sufficient clearance to enter that room. Now that that’s out of the way let’s continue on
to explain the first part of the CIA Triad, confidentiality.

CONFIDENTIALITY
Confidentiality is what I would say is the second most if not the most important part of the CIA
triad alongside Integrity simply, because confidentiality is the process at which only people who
are allowed access to a system or collection of data have the authority to do so. Confidentiality
allows a company to have a level of privacy for its customers and employees. Keeping sensitive
information away from people who are not authorized to access it. Determining how sensitive
the information that you are trying to keep confidential can help you find the best way to secure
your data.

INTEGRITY
Integrity is the process by which you take steps to ensure that your data is not altered in any
way by unauthorized people. Making sure that your data can be trusted is crucial because you
must be sure that none of your data has been tampered with one way to do this is to encrypt all
of your data. This way no unauthorized people can implant malware into your system or
software and potentially infect even more systems causing a further breach of security.

AVAILABILITY
Availability is the process by which all of your data is kept in a state where all authorized users
can easily access it. Having your data in an easy-to-access state makes it easier for your
customers and employees to get the data that they are trying to reach. This also makes for a
faster and more efficient environment where all authorized users don’t have to spend very much
time trying to gain access to data, and at the same time makes it harder for unauthorized users
to gain access by means of keeping your data confidential.

CONCLUSION
In summary, authentication is the means to verify if someone is who they say they are while
authorization is the means to verify if someone is allowed access to something. The CIA triad is
composed of three guidelines: confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Each part of the triad is
intended for companies to be able to efficiently protect their data and at the same time allow for
easy access to data for authorized users