Thursday, June 12, 2014

The CIA Triad

Let’s have a look at the definition of “Information Security”, given by three different organizations:

"Preservation of confidentiality, integrity and availability of information."
(ISO/IEC 27000:2009)

"Ensures that only authorized users (confidentiality) have access to accurate and complete information (integrity) when required (availability)."
(ISACA, 2008)

"The protection of information and information systems, from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, or destruction in order to provide confidentiality, integrity, and availability."
(CNSS, 2010)


As we can see, in all three definition given above, three things are common i.e. Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability. These three properties are known as CIA Triad. 


Confidentiality: Confidentiality refers to limiting information access and disclosure to authorized users and preventing access by or disclosure to unauthorized ones.
          Possible attacks:
Ø Injection
Ø Authentication Bypass
Ø MITM (Man in the Middle)
Ø XSS
Ø Directory Browsing

Risks:
Ø Loss of Privacy
Ø Unauthorized access to information
Ø Identity Theft

Controls:
Ø Encryption
Ø Authentication
Ø Access control

Primary Focus:
Ø Information Security

Integrity: Integrity of information refers to protecting information from being modified by unauthorized users.

Possible attacks:
Ø Injection
Ø Authentication Bypass
Ø MITM (Man in the Middle)
Ø CSRF

Risks:
Ø Loss of Accuracy
Ø Loss of Reliability
Ø Fraud

Controls:
Ø Digital Signature
Ø Maker/Checker
Ø Audit Logs

Primary Focus:
Ø Operational Controls

Availability: Availability of information refers to ensuring that authorized users are able to access the information when needed.

Possible attacks:
Ø Injection
Ø DoS (Denial of Service)
Ø DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service)

Risks:
Ø Business disruption
Ø Loss of customer confidence
Ø Loss of Revenue

Controls:
Ø Back-up storage
Ø Sufficient capacity
Ø BCP Plans and Tests

Primary Focus:
Ø Business continuity planning

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