The CIA Triad Write Up
Darius Burks
Old Dominion University
February 22,2026







The CIA TRIAD is a model for cybersecurity that shows the steps that help secure and protect online systems and their information. The three steps include Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability. These three steps help institute the foundation for the whole structure of cybersecurity. It gives a outline of what is being protected in a company and the importance of why we must protect.
Parts of the CIA Triad
One step on the Triad in Confidentiality. The purpose of this is to only allow those who are authorized or who have been given authorization to access certain files and information. An example of cybersecurity enforcing confidentiality would be two step authentications. Old Dominion University uses the two step verification when you are trying to log on to your Midas account that holds personal data such as addresses, finance statements, and class schedules.
Another step on the Triad is Integrity. This principle is used to ensure that the data provided meets all the necessary requirements that show it is trustworthy. Holding integrity in cybersecurity is used so that the data and information provided can be trusted and is safe to use by only the authorized users. Integrity protects users and their data from fraud, accidental or purposeful miscues, data festering.
The last step is Availability. With the other two steps being managed, it is impractical for the information not to be available to those who need to view it. Basically, Availability helps ensure the system is up and running and is obtainable. Availability helps protect against system malfunctions and server overloads.

Authentication and Authorization
Authentication is the process of confirming the user is who they are portraying to be. An example would be logging into your google account and they send email with a passcode so you can verify it is your account. Authorization is the process of figuring out what the user is permitted to access on the network system. An example of authorization would be after logging into your google account, you can see all the apps like google docs and google maps, but you can not log into another person’s google account.

Conclusion
The CIA Triad is covered in three pieces; Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability and they are the justification for cybersecurity. Together, they help protect the users and the networks against any threat that could potentially corrupt the information and data.






Reference Page
What is the CIA triad and why is it important?. Fortinet. (n.d.). https://www.fortinet.com/resources/cyberglossary/cia-triad

GeeksforGeeks. (2025, December 22). What is CIA triad? https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/computer-networks/the-cia-triad-in-cryptography/