From the course: CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) Cert Prep: 1 General Security Concepts

The goals of information security

From the course: CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) Cert Prep: 1 General Security Concepts

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The goals of information security

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Information security professionals have broad and important responsibilities for safeguarding the information and systems that are often an organization's most valuable assets. When we think of the goals of information security, we often use a model known as the CIA triad shown here. This model highlights the three most important functions that information security performs in an enterprise; confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Confidentiality ensures that only authorized individuals have access to information and resources. This is what most people think of when they think about cybersecurity. Keeping secrets away from prying eyes. And confidentiality is, in fact, how security professionals spend the majority of their time. Malicious individuals seeking to undermine confidentiality are said to engage in disclosure, making sensitive information available to individuals or the general public without the owner's consent. Security professionals are also responsible for protecting the integrity of an organization's information. This means that there aren't any unauthorized changes made to that information. These unauthorized changes may come in the form of an attacker seeking to intentionally alter information, or a service disruption that accidentally affects data stored in a system. In either case, it's the information security professionals responsibility to prevent these lapses in integrity. The final goal of information security is availability, ensuring that authorized individuals are able to gain access to information when they need it. If users can't access important business records or systems, that lack of availability may have a profound impact on the business. Malicious individuals seeking to undermine availability engage in attacks known as denial-of-service attacks. These attacks try to either overwhelm a system or cause it to crash, therefore, denying legitimate users the access that they need.

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