With the ever-rising cases of data theft and hacking, security is always a huge concern for IT professionals. Having a good security system in place helps identify threats and prevent attacks from interfering with important data. In addition to this, it also helps the system recover from any threat that manages to find its way to the system. To achieve this, IT professionals must understand the ins and outs of information security in order to create better policies and mechanisms to neutralize threats.
Information security concerns itself with the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of information. These are the three principles upon which computer security companies base their data security systems. We have explored each of them in detail down below.
1. Integrity
Integrity refers to the element of trust with regards to information. It refers to the prevention of unauthorized or improper change. Data integrity includes both the integrity of the content of the information and the origin integrity (authentication or source of the data). It must be assumed that an information system will face threats from different vectors after which safeguards must be put in place to counter them. It also important to note that data integrity and data security often go hand in hand despite the fact that they are different concepts. Keeping data consistent in an organization is a matter of maintaining and protecting it (security) to ensure that it is reliable.
2. Availability
Availability models maintain data and resources available for authorized use, specifically during disasters or emergencies. IT security professionals must address three important challenges under availability:
• Failure of equipment during normal use
• Loss of data system capabilities as a result of natural and man-made disasters such as floods, fires, earthquakes, storms, strikes, and bombs.
• Denial of service (DOS) due to either undiscovered flaws in the system or intentional attacks
3. Confidentiality
Confidentiality is the masking of information resources. There are certain types of sensitive information that must always be kept secret. Examples are civilian and military institutions in the government which restrict access to their information except for the right personnel. Access control mechanisms enhance confidentiality. Different mechanisms work differently to achieve this. Some computer security companies use cryptography which scrambles information making it hard to comprehend.
Data security certainly goes beyond availability, confidentiality, and integrity. The systems and processes of executing effective security systems are complex and detailed but they all rely on these three basic principles. It is, therefore, safe to infer that, these basic principles are the building blocks of data security where every other system branches off from.