The CIA is the core of cybersecurity. Without all three parts major problems can happen. CIA stands for Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability.
What is the CIA?
The CIA is the foundation of cybersecurity and managing a network of computers. “Sometimes referred to as the AIC triad (availability, integrity and confidentiality) to avoid confusion with the Central Intelligence Agency” (Chai, 2022). It is important to understand why without the CIA a system or network of systems is doomed to fail. The “C” stands for confidentiality. Only the people who should see the data will see the data. The “I” stands for integrity. The data is accurate and has not been modified from what it is supposed to be. The “A” stands for availability. The people who have access to the data can get to the data during the allowed times.
Confidentiality
A lot of people want to get data that they shouldn’t see. You need ways to help safeguard data from outsiders. Firewalls and passwords are a way to put a layer in front of people who shouldn’t get into the system. Encrypting all the data will greatly improve confidentiality. If data is stolen then it couldn’t be read. It is also very important to have a type of permission list. Each person’s account will have access to what they are allowed to according to the list. For example, if a person is Rank C then then they can get access to anything Rank C or below. You might need a more completed permission list than a simple ranking system. A real-world example of breach of confidentiality happened with the game company Rockstar. Lot of data on the game GTA 6 got released. It was “Totaling 90 videos—some lasting seconds, some going on for minutes” (Wolens, 2022). Rockstar was not happy about the leak.
Integrity
Making sure the data has not been changed is very important. If someone could just change the number in a bank account or important document, it will cause long lasting damage. Bad data sometimes just happens. A file could get messed up because of a glitch making it unreadable. One way to make sure the data is accurate is always have a backup that can be referenced. Having bad data in drive failures or hacking attacks can be restored with the backups. Not having a backup of important data can lead to major problems. Hashing the data is another way to make sure the data hasn’t changed. If the data has changed the hash will be different. Only the hashes need to be compared not the whole data set. “Hashing makes use of algorithms that transform blocks of data from a file in a much shorter value or key of a fixed length that represent those strings” (Buttice & Becker, 2021).
Availability
Being able to get access to the data in the allowed times is very important. Customers may leave and go to another company if the services are down too often. Usually, the allowed times are 24/7 but sometimes it could be a certain time of day. A lot of money can be lost while the data or service is down. A common way to keep availability up is to have backup sites where the data can be accessed. If the main site goes down then the backup will take over. Customers may not notice any or much downtime with the backup active.
Conclusion
The CIA is the basis of cybersecurity. Cybersecurity isn’t just defense against hackers. It also means keeping data safe. If the only hard drive holding all the company’s data fails, then that could mean the end of the company. Having a backup is for integrity and availability. Any company will have major problems if the CIA is ignored.
References
Buttice, C., & Becker, R. (2021, April 27). What is hashing? – definition from Techopedia. Techopedia.com. Retrieved January 25, 2023, from https://www.techopedia.com/definition/14316/hashing-cybersecurity
Chai, W. (2022, June 28). What is the CIA triad_ definition, explanation, examples – techtarget.pdf. Google Drive. Retrieved January 24, 2023, from https://drive.google.com/file/d/1898r4pGpKHN6bmKcwlxPdVZpCC6Moy8l/view
Wolens, J. (2022, December 22). The GTA 6 leak was one of the biggest ever, and the only winners were the news writers. pcgamer. Retrieved January 24, 2023, from https://www.pcgamer.com/the-gta-6-leak-was-one-of-the-biggest-ever-and-the-only-winners-were-the-news-writers/