BLUF 

The CIA Triad—Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability—is a fundamental framework in cybersecurity. Authentication and Authorization are essential processes for managing access control. It is important to understand these principles to ensure proper protection of information and to ensure secure access.

Understanding CIA Triad 

The CIA Triad consists of three critical principles to ensure the security of information systems: 

  • Confidentiality: Ensures sensitive data remains accessible only to authorized individuals. This includes data encryption, access control lists, and two-factor authentication (2FA)(Chai, 2022). For example, requiring both a password and fingerprint to access confidential files helps prevent unauthorized viewing by requiring 2FA through something a person knows and something a person is. 
  • Integrity: Ensures information remains accurate, consistent, and trustworthy over its entire lifecycle. Measures such as digital signatures, checksums, and version control detect and prevent unauthorized alterations. For example, software updates use cryptographic hashes to confirm authenticity and prevent malicious changes (Imperva, 2023). 
  • Availability: Ensures data and systems are reliably accessible to authorized users when needed. Availability is supported through regular system maintenance, redundant infrastructures like RAID storage or failover systems, and safeguards against disruptions like Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks. A hospital maintaining continuous access to patient records is an example showing the importance of availability (Forcepoint, 2023). 

Authentication vs Authorization 

While it may seem like they mean the same thing, authentication and authorization serve distinctly different purposes in cybersecurity: 

  • Authentication: Verifies a user’s identity through the question, “Are you who you say you are?” This step usually involves credentials such as usernames, passwords, biometrics, or certificates. For example, I must use a certificate on my token along with my password to log in at my workplace. 
  • Authorization determines what an authenticated user is permitted to do within a system, answering the question, “What can you access?” After authentication, a user may be restricted to what their account is allowed to do on a system, which has been set by their system administrator. 

Conclusion 

The CIA Triad and clearly defined authentication and authorization processes help round out a comprehensive approach to cybersecurity. Adopting these frameworks helps organizations protect sensitive data, maintain system integrity, and ensure consistent availability.  

References 

Chai, W. (2022, June 28). What is the CIA Triad? Definition, explanation, examples. TechTarget. Retrieved from https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/Confidentiality-integrity-and-availability-CIA

Forcepoint. (2023). What is the CIA Triad? Retrieved from https://www.forcepoint.com/cyber-edu/cia-triad 

Imperva. (2023). Authentication vs. Authorization: What’s the Difference? Retrieved from https://www.imperva.com/learn/application-security/authentication-vs-authorization/