Information Security to Ensure Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability
According to Common Vulnerability Enumeration (CVE) database, there are 60,000+ common vulnerabilities, 900+ common weaknesses, 1014+ common configuration errors, over 150,000 security related events, and a large number of application related errors. This is enough to prove the dangerous environment in which sensitive information and information systems of enterprises reside.
As the world transitioned from a paper based economy to a digital based one, enterprises today store confidential business details which include personal staff details, client lists, salaries, bank account details, marketing and sales information on computers. This has made matters easy for the cyber criminals who use the vulnerabilities in the software to gain access to a system or network. Only through information security that enterprises can protect sensitive information and information systems “from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, perusal, inspection, recording or destruction.”
One of the core principles of information security is the CIA triad. The three main components of CIA triad are confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The CIA is a well-known security model that puts emphasis on the three key principles that need to be guaranteed in any kind of secure system; breach of any one of these principles would lead to serious consequences for the people concerned.
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Confidentiality
It refers to the ability to hide the information from people who do not have the permission to access it. This helps to ensure that the data is not compromised and is not disclosed to unauthorized people. Some of the methods employed to ensure confidentiality is encryption and cryptography. ·
Integrity
It refers to the ability of protecting the data from modification or deletion by unauthorized people. Data integrity ensures that the data is the accurate and unmodified version of the original data. ·
Availability
Though it is highly necessary to ensure that the data is unavailable to unauthorized people, it is equally important to make sure that the data is available to authorized people. People who are authorized to access information must not face any issues when accessing information that is needed.
To ensure information security, enterprises must collaborate with service providers who provide information security services such as information security consulting, identity & access management services, transformation & system integration services, and managed security services. This helps enterprises to ensure not only confidentiality, integrity and availability of sensitive information but also security from cyber threats, malware infections, Phishing attacks, web application attacks and so on.
Related Links: managed security services, end user computing