3 Main Reasons Why Information Security Is Necessary
Information Security is the protection of computing systems and the data that they store or access
We
uses large amount of information everyday. It may be in our computer
systems, mobile devices or in our brains!. Do you know how much data we
handle in one day? It is huge, it is larger than the detailed
information about the human evolution till 2000!
Information
are arranged in a manner that, it can be retrieved easily from the
resources. Computer systems and mobile devices can access and handle
various information resources easily.
How They Handles Information ?
Computer
systems and mobile devices are handling the information by using
various mechanisms including authentication, synchronization etc.
Authentication
mechanisms, yes, like the passwords and usernames. Authentication
mechanisms works under the basis of some unique secret codes, it may be a
secret word, fingerprint, or even in the form of pills!
Why We Use These Authentication Mechanisms ?
Because, we need to protect our data from others.
3 Main Reasons why Information Security Is Important
Usually
our data are stored and protected by some authentication mechanisms.
But in some cases these authentication mechanisms can be overridden.
That means, our data can be viewed or controlled by other persons
(hackers) or organizations.
The
above mentioned situation is of course scary. So we must defend the
information from unauthorized access. Yes, the Information Security.
3 Main Reasons are here,
1. Availability
Information security provides availability as it's quality. Availability is one of the great qualities of information security.
What is availability, can you explain it with an example ?
Of course, let me take an example from the hacking world, i think it will be easier for you to understand the concepts.
When
hackers performs denial of service attacks on a website or network, the
website or network cannot be accessed by a normal user. That is called
the non availability of service. If the website or network are have
enough security, when the hackers perform denial of service attacks, the
hackers will be banned from the network or website and a normal user
access it. That is called Availability.
Availability = can have whenever needed.
2. Confidentiality
Confidentiality
is also one of the qualities of Information Security. Actually, the
meaning of this word is in the word. I mean "confidential-ity".
Can you explain it using a simple example ?
Yes,
confidentiality means private information or secret information. As you
know that, everyone have secrets, it may be their private phone
number,private photos or anything.
Just
imagine, you have a private file stored in your computer or cloud. One
day you wake up realizing that your private information has been stolen
and it's now available in every public resources. I know, it is scary.
To prevent others from accessing your private information , you need tight security. That is, you need confidentiality !
3. Integrity
The
term integrity means, maintaining and assuring the accuracy and
consistency of data. Data integrity ensures data is recorded exactly as
intended.
Can You Explain Integrity With An example ?
Let's
take an example, just imagine, you have uploaded a file to a server.
After two days you have downloaded the same file and realize that, some
part of original file is missing or corrupted. That's why we need
integrity. Integrity is the opposite of data corruption or data loss.
Any
unintended changes to the data as a result of storage, processing,
retrieval or malicious intent is the failure of data integrity. May be a
human error (I mean error's caused by humans) can cause failure of data
Integrity.
The
above mentioned Availability, Confidentiality, Integrity are the basic
concepts of information security. In 2002, Donn Parker proposed an
alternative model called the six atomic elements of information, which
consists of confidentiality, possession, integrity, authenticity,
availability, and utility. But this theory is still a subject of debate
among security professionals.
