Reference no: EM132626316

Question : 1

Availability is one of the three parts of the CIA triad. It is important as it ensures that sensitive information is available to authorized people at all times. Proper measures to maintain availability makes disaster recovery easy. Another important part of availability is backup of the data. This data helps to maintain system critical functions running in case of primary data loss. So, availability is essential for business continuity.

It is difficult to pick one aspect of CIA triad based on importance. All of them are equally important, interdependent and has their own purpose. For example, in case of Denial of service attacks, the data is not manipulated but, the availability is compromised by flooding the server with huge number of false requests. On the other hand, in case of XSS attacks, actual data is manipulated which compromises integrity. So, failure of any one of them can make data useless.

Data has the highest importance in any organization as it feeds all the software and hardware components. Any devices or programs that are damaged due to physical attacks or technical attacks can be easily replaced in no time but, data is not. So, proper measures such as using right tools, avoiding bottlenecks and data virtualization must be in place.

Question : 2

Information security professionals promote the availability of data for authorized use as one of the relevant goals of information security. It is one most effective ways of protecting a computer system (Zhang, Wuwong, Li, & Zhang, 2010). As a result, an organization and individuals alike have an opportunity of keeping resources and relevant information for authorized persons, especially during disasters and other forms of emergencies. Equipment failure during normal usage is one of the challenges of information availability. Besides, organizations and individuals alike might experience Denial of service (DOS) as a result of any forms of undetected flaws in the process of implementing a program (Aldossary & Allen, 2016). For this reason, it is imperative to grant access to information only to authorized persons and apply information encryption to information that is either stored in digital media or transferred over the internet.

Availability is more crucial than the confidentiality and integrity goals of information security. If a cyber-attacker is incapable of compromising the other two elements of information security, they are likely to execute attacks that can affect the servers and, thus, making a website unavailable to legitimate users. Arguably, information can only have value if only authorized individuals have access to it (Chia, 2012). It is imperative for an organization to know the value of data in relation to availability in order to implement the most appropriate backup and limit the damage that might occur on the information system. Organizations should have an off-site location as a way of restoring services in case of an emergency that might cause downtime.