What Is Information Security?

Information security is the study and practice of protecting information. Its main goal is to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information. Professionals usually refer to this as the C-I-A triad, or sometimes the A-I-C triad. (A triad is a group of three things considered to be a single unit.)

The C-I-A triad appears in FIGURE 1-1.

A diagram depicts the Confidentiality-Integrity-Availability triad.

FIGURE 1-1The C-I-A triad.

Description

The need to protect information is not a new concept. For instance, Julius Caesar used a simple letter-substitution code to share secrets with his military commanders. Caesar used this type of code, called a Caesar cipher ...

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