The CIA triad represents the three core principles of cybersecurity: confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Together, they are considered the three most important concepts within information security.
The CIA Triad is a key model in information security that helps organizations manage and protect data. It covers how data is stored, sent, and used. Each part of the triad is an important part of how to keep information secure. This model assists with coordinating incident response by establishing common ground for administrative and technical staff to communicate an incident’s scope. (CIS,2021)
Confidentiality: Keeping data private so that only authorized people have access to it; this can be done by access controls and multi-factor authentication.
Integrity: Making sure that the data stays accurate and unchanged by using different techniques like digital signatures or hashing.
Availability: Data should be accessible whenever they need it, regular backups and disaster recovery are essential to make this possible.
Implementing the CIA Triad offers several advantages for organizations, especially the ones handling sensitive information. Some of the key benefits of using this model are data security and privacy, compliance, proactive risk prevention, and comprehensiveness.
Authentication and authorization are different types of security processes in the world of identity and access management. Authentication is the process of verifying who you are and proving your identity. This could be done by entering your username and password to show that you are the owner of the account. Authorization is the process after you have been authenticated. After you log in, you can only see your account information and perform tasks, but you don’t have access to any other accounts. It gives the user access to a specific resource or function, and this is set in place to make sure that confidential information is only available to the person who has access to it.
The CIA triad plays an important part in protecting data within organizations. Implementing it not only ensures that data remains private and accurate but also improves the organization’s ability to handle incidents. Authentication makes sure that only the right people can log in, while authorization controls what those people can do once they are logged in. Understanding the difference between authentication and authorization is crucial in order to keep sensitive information safe. Confusing one for the other can result in giving someone the wrong level of access and potentially exposing sensitive data.
References
Authentication vs. authorization. Okta. (n.d.). https://www.okta.com/identity-101/authentication-vs-authorization/
Center for Internet Security. (2021, June 15). Election security spotlight – cia triad. CIS. https://www.cisecurity.org/insights/spotlight/ei-isac-cybersecurity-spotlight-cia-triad
Hashemi-Pour, C., & Chai, W. (2023, December 21). What is the CIA triad?: Definition from TechTarget. https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/Confidentiality-integrity-and-availability-CIA