The CIA Strikes Back: Redefining Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability in Security

Abstract

This paper reviews the history of the CIA (Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability) triad from the perspectives of information security practitioners and scholars. Whilst the former have trusted the technical orientation of the triad as a unique point of reference in information security, the latter have questioned the triad's capacity of addressing the breadth of socio-technical issues that have emerged in security since the 2000s. Through a revisiting of the key tenets of the triad, the paper reconciles these two, seemingly fragmented, approaches. The main argument is that the CIA triad will continue to assume a major role in information security practice. However, this is not due to the fact that practitioners have discarded, or rejected the enhancements that socio-technical security scholars have proposed over the years; rather, it is because these enhancements can be accommodated by a broader re-conceptualization of the original CIA triad. The paper concludes with potential areas for future research.