The CIA Triad is a fundamental concept in computer security that represents three core principles essential for designing and implementing secure information systems. The CIA Triad stands for:
Confidentiality:
Confidentiality ensures that sensitive information is protected from unauthorized access or disclosure. This involves preventing unauthorized individuals, systems, or processes from accessing confidential data. Measures to maintain confidentiality include encryption, access controls, and secure communication protocols.
Integrity:
Integrity ensures the accuracy, consistency, and trustworthiness of data throughout its lifecycle. This involves protecting data from unauthorized modification, deletion, or tampering. Integrity measures include checksums, digital signatures, and access controls to prevent unauthorized alterations.
Availability:
Availability ensures that authorized users have timely and reliable access to information and resources. This involves preventing and mitigating disruptions or attacks that could impact the availability of systems and data. Availability measures include redundancy, backups, disaster recovery planning, and resilience against denial-of-service (DoS) attacks.
These three principles are interconnected, and they form the basis for designing comprehensive security strategies to protect information and information systems. The CIA Triad is often represented as a triangle, with each side representing one of the core principles. Balancing these principles is essential, as enhancing one aspect of security should not compromise the others.
Extensions to the CIA Triad include additional principles that address specific security concerns:
Authenticity:
Authenticity ensures that the origin or source of information can be verified. This is often achieved through mechanisms such as digital signatures and user authentication.
Non-repudiation:
Non-repudiation ensures that a party cannot deny the authenticity or origin of a communication or action. Digital signatures and audit trails support non-repudiation.
Accountability:
Accountability involves tracking and attributing actions to specific users or entities. Logging and auditing mechanisms contribute to accountability.
The CIA Triad is a foundational concept in cybersecurity, guiding the development and implementation of security policies, procedures, and technologies to safeguard information and systems from various threats and risks.