What is confidentiality and what are the similarities and differences of confidentiality, integrity and availability?
Confidentiality is the process of assuring that data is disclosed only to authorized entities and protected from unauthorized access.
Confidentiality is tenet of information security and ensures that unauthorized individuals are not able to gain access to sensitive organizational information and information systems. Confidentiality is one core element of information security objective. These pillars of information security are collectively named as Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability (CIA) triads. Besides, organizations establish and implement security controls such as firewalls, access control lists (ACL) and encryption to prevent unauthorized access to valuable assets. And cybercriminals attempt to undermine confidentiality security controls to achieve unauthorized disclosure and access of sensitive information.
Integrity principle of CIA triad ensures that there are no unauthorized modifications to information and information systems. Whereas availability principle ensures that information and information systems are accessible whenever authorized entities demands so.