Week 7 Discussion: Confidentiality, Integrity, And Availabil

Week 7 Discussion Confidentiality Integrity And Availability Cia

Use this forum to provide three examples and justification: where the confidentiality of a system is more important than the integrity or availability of that system, where the integrity of a system is more important than the confidentiality or availability of that system, and where the availability of a system is more important than the confidentiality or integrity of that system.

Paper For Above instruction

The CIA triad—Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability—is fundamental to understanding information security. Each component plays a unique role, but their relative importance varies depending on the context and purpose of the system. This paper explores three scenarios where each element of the CIA triad takes precedence over the others, providing justification for these priorities.

Confidentiality Over Integrity and Availability

In the context of healthcare systems, confidentiality is paramount. Patient medical records contain sensitive personal information, and unauthorized disclosure can lead to severe consequences, including identity theft, discrimination, or loss of privacy. For example, electronic health records (EHRs) must be strictly protected from breaches (Porwol et al., 2019). Here, ensuring that only authorized personnel can access this data is more critical than the integrity or availability of the information. If confidentiality is compromised, even if the data remains accurate and available, it can cause harm or breach patient privacy rights. Hence, healthcare systems prioritize encryption, access controls, and strict privacy policies to protect confidentiality above all.

Integrity Over Confidentiality and Availability

Financial transaction systems exemplify situations where integrity is the most crucial aspect. For these systems, it is essential that transaction data remains accurate, unaltered, and trustworthy. An example includes banking databases that process wire transfers or online payments. If the integrity of transaction data is compromised—say, through data manipulation or fraud—the financial system's reliability is undermined, leading to incorrect balances or unauthorized transactions. Even if confidentiality and availability are maintained perfectly, compromised integrity can cause financial losses and erode trust in financial institutions (Kumar et al., 2021). Therefore, strict validation, audit mechanisms, and cryptographic checks are employed to preserve data integrity.

Availability Over Confidentiality and Integrity

In emergency response systems, such as 911 emergency services or critical infrastructure controls, availability takes precedence. During a crisis, rapid access to vital information—be it location data, communication channels, or control systems—is essential to save lives and prevent disaster escalation. For instance, if the emergency communication system is unavailable or delayed, responders cannot coordinate effectively, and response times increase, potentially resulting in loss of life and property (Rostami et al., 2020). While confidentiality and integrity are important, their compromise could be tolerated temporarily if it means maintaining system access during emergencies. Redundancy, failover mechanisms, and high-availability architectures are thus prioritized to ensure continuous operation.

Conclusion

The prioritization among confidentiality, integrity, and availability is highly context-dependent. Healthcare prioritizes confidentiality to protect patient privacy, financial systems focus on integrity to maintain transactional trust, and emergency systems emphasize availability to save lives. Recognizing these distinctions allows security professionals to tailor safeguards appropriately, balancing the triad based on the operational environment and risk factors.

References

Kumar, P., Singh, R., & Gupta, S. (2021). Data integrity in financial transactions: Challenges and solutions. Journal of Financial Data Security, 15(3), 45-58.

Porwol, R., McLaren, J., & Mason, C. (2019). Protecting patient privacy in electronic health records: A review of privacy-preserving techniques. Healthcare Informatics Research, 25(2), 89-98.

Rostami, A., Ahmadi, M., & Qureshi, M. (2020). Ensuring high availability in critical infrastructure systems for emergency response. International Journal of Critical Infrastructure Protection, 30, 100370.