The CIA Triad is a cybersecurity model that helps organizations focus on the fundamentals of confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Each principle is important to keep the flow of information secure yet fast. Confidentiality limits who can see the data, integrity protects the data itself, and availability keeps data quick.
Confidentiality
Confidentiality is about determining what a user is or isn’t authorized to do determined by their authentication. While authorization is the right of what the user has access to, authentication is the process of identifying the user and verifying this identity. Confidentiality, then, is all about encryption of data, safe storage of data, and how to authenticate the user. Common authentication methods include “two factor authentication… biometric verification and security tokens, key fobs or soft tokens,” (Chai, 2022) according to technical writer Wesley Chai.
Integrity
While confidentiality is about access to data, integrity is about permission to edit data and ensuring that the data hasn’t been compromised. The former can be done through a mixture of authentication, as explained in the Confidentiality section, and confirmation prompts before editing or deleting any data in case of an accident. The latter can be ensured through checksums for “verification of identity,” as well as use of backups in case of an unexpected change (Chai, 2022)
Availability
Finally, availability is all about system upkeep and backups. Maintaining hardware and keeping the OS properly updated ensure that the system runs as smoothly and efficiently as possible, providing “adequate communication bandwidth and preventing the occurrence of bottlenecks” (Chai, 2022). Maintaining a system of up-to-date backups as disaster recovery is another key component of availability as well, having an alternate storage of the data in case the main server has issues.
Conclusion
The CIA Triad is an efficient model policy guideline for an organization’s cybersecurity because of its focus on the fundamentals of confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Ensuring that only authorized users have access to data that is unchanged and readily available is key to keeping any organization running safely and efficiently.
References
Chai, W. (2022, 06 08). What is the CIA Triad? Definition, Explanation, Examples. techtarget. Retrieved 09 15, 2024, from https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/Confidentiality-integrity-and-availability-C IA?jr=on