The CIA model in cyber security is a fundamental model that acts as a foundation for developing security policies which are designed to protect data. The CIA triad stands for confidentiality, integrity and availability. It is a common prototype that builds the basis for the development of security systems. They are used to discover vulnerabilities and methods to create solutions.

What is the CIA model in Cyber Security?

The CIA model is a framework that is a mixture of three key information security principles i.e., confidentiality, integrity and availability, that is essential for functioning of a business. This differentiation allows the security teams to determine diverse methods by which they can address each problem. When all the three benchmarks are satisfied, the organization’s security shape is more assertive and better qualified to handle threat incidents. 

CIA triad is more that information security framework, which helps the organizations to upgrade and maintain maximum security while allowing staff to perform daily tasks such as data collection, customer service and general management. The CIA model works with a vision that focuses on maintaining a balance between the confidentiality, integrity and availability of data under protection of your information security structure.

Importance of CIA triad in Cyber Security

The core basis for the development of security systems and policies for institutions highlight the importance of the CIA triad. As such, the CIA triad performs a crucial part to maintain your data in a safe and protected manner from the increasing cyber threats. In case of any security incident, such as information swiping or a security breach, it is assumed that the businesses have been unsuccessful in properly enforcing all the regulations. The CIA triad is important to information security as it enriches security posture, enables businesses to stay obedient to complex regulations, and guarantees continuity of business.

Components of the CIA model

The important components of the CIA model are discussed below:

1. Confidentiality- Confidentiality in cyber security ensures that information is accessible only by authorized individuals and protects it from malicious actors with illicit intentions. It comprises the actions of an organization to ensure data is kept in a confidential or private manner. It is all about maintaining access to data to block unauthorized disclosure. To ensure this functions in a better way, the access to information must be supervised and controlled to prevent unauthorized access to data. A crucial component to preserve confidentiality is to assure that people without proper authorization are denied from accessing assets of your business. Network reconnoitering and other sorts of scans, electronic eavesdropping, and escalation of privileges by an attacker are related examples.
2. Integrity- Integrity of data plays an important role in a business to make sure data and business analysts are accessing accurate information. Data presented to the public must maintain integrity, so that customers can rely on your business. A system with integrity keeps data safe from unnecessary changes, whether malicious or accidental. Integrity helps to preserve the trustworthiness of data holding it in the right form and immune any inappropriate mutation. This creates a foundation for your assets and needs businesses to ensure uniform, precise, trustworthy and secure data. To maintain integrity of your data, make sure your data consists of encryption, hashing, digital signatures, and digital certificates by trusted certificate authorities to businesses to verify their originality to website users, similar to the path a passport or driver’s license is used to verify an individual’s identity.
3. Availability- Availability is confined to the idea that people who need access to data can receive it, without affecting its confidentiality or integrity. Systems, applications and data do not carry any importance to an organization, if they are not available at the time of requirement by the authorized users. It indicates that networks, systems and applications are active and operating. Hardware collapse or software issues, power failure, natural circumstances beyond one’s control and human error, can threaten the availability. The measures that maintain the availability of data include redundancy in servers, internal networks, applications, hardware fault tolerance, regular software patching, system upgrades, backups, comprehensive disaster recovery plans and DoS protection solutions. 

Implementation of CIA Triad

The CIA triad model can be used in multiple ways, such as:

• Comprehending how to keep customer, employer, and critical business data protected.
• Finding the best way to enforce authorization and authentication methods.
• Ensuring any new devices added to an organization are secure without introducing risks.

1. Best Practices of Confidentiality-

• Data should be encrypted using MFA or 2FA.
• Maintain access control checklists and other file permissions updated.
• Data should be handled based on the organization’s demanded privacy

2. Best Practices of Integrity-

• Use backup and recovery strategies and software.
• Assure employees are familiar with compliance and regulatory requirements to reduce human error.
• Use version control, access control, security control, logs, and checksums to maintain integrity.

3. Best Practices of Availability–

• Assure a BCDR plan to be prepared for any loss of data.
• Utilize preventative efforts such as redundancy failover and RAID and ensure systems and applications are updated.
• Utilize network or server monitoring strategies.

Use of CIA Triad

CIA triad is used to evaluate data security of the security posture of the business. It creates a balance between all the CUA triad pillars of confidentiality, integrity and availability from a broad viewpoint. This approach ensures security of digital information irrespective of weakening of other pillars of defense. Further, the CIA triad effectively determines the risk elements in information security systems and IT infrastructure. It is a gateway for more sophisticated risk assessment and management of security controls, such as the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) list and the National Vulnerability Database. 

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