In the information security community, CIA has nothing to do with the central intelligence agency. These letters stand for confidentiality, integrity, and availability otherwise known as the CIA triad. Together these three principles should function as goals and objectives for every security program.

Confidentiality refers to an organization’s efforts to keep its data private.

Integrity refers to the quality of something being whole or complete.

Availability means that networks, systems, and applications are up and running.