CIA Triad: Everything You Need to Know
Updated July 2025 | Estimated read time: 7 minutes | Published by Firevault
What Is the CIA Triad?
The CIA Triad stands for Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability — three foundational principles of information security. Despite evolving threats and technologies, the CIA Triad remains the baseline against which all risk, resilience, and control frameworks are measured.
However, the assumptions behind CIA were built for logical controls. In today’s threat landscape — especially post-ransomware — *logical is no longer enough.*
Confidentiality
Definition: Preventing unauthorised access to sensitive data.
Risks: Credential theft, phishing, insider leaks, cloud misconfigurations, third-party risk.
Standard controls: Encryption, access control, identity verification.
The problem: Most controls still operate on systems connected to the internet or exposed to human error. If access is possible, so is compromise.
Integrity
Definition: Ensuring data remains unaltered, tamper-free, and trustworthy.
Risks: Ransomware encryption, accidental overwrites, time-delayed logic bombs, unauthorised data injection.
Standard controls: Checksums, cryptographic hashes, audit trails, backup verification.
The problem: Integrity can be quietly undermined by advanced threats. If your backups are also online, they can be silently corrupted too.
Availability
Definition: Ensuring data and systems are accessible when needed.
Risks: DDoS attacks, ransomware lockouts, cloud outages, system failures.
Standard controls: Load balancing, cloud redundancy, backup-as-a-service.
The problem: Availability is often achieved by adding more digital pathways — which increases attack surface and complexity. What’s available to you is also available to threat actors.
How the Triad Fails Without Disconnection
When everything is connected, any single vulnerability can collapse all three pillars at once:
- A ransomware attack can breach confidentiality, alter integrity, and kill availability — all within minutes.
- Cloud or hybrid setups often expose one control while trying to secure another.
- Insiders or credential abuse bypass logical controls entirely.
**Digital-first CIA is incomplete.** The triad only holds when there is a physical wall between the attacker and the asset.
How Firevault Strengthens the CIA Triad
Firevault – The Offline Digital Vault
- Confidentiality: Files stored in Firevault are offline, invisible, and cannot be located or exfiltrated. No IP address, no metadata, no exposure — full denial of access by default.
- Integrity: Immutable snapshots, no third-party access, and no opportunity for live tampering. If data is moved, it’s logged, verified, and tied to your identity.
- Availability: Vaults are designed to be accessible *when needed* — not constantly online. Scheduled access windows, fallover vaults, and decentralised access profiles ensure availability without permanent exposure.
How CSPaaS Enforces CIA in Real-Time
Firevault CSPaaS transforms theory into policy-backed, real-world enforcement:
- Confidentiality: CSPaaS Relay and Lock modules physically isolate systems from unauthorised endpoints. No packet = no breach.
- Integrity: Access through CSPaaS requires MFA, ID match, safe words, and role verification. Vault sessions are fully audited with verified provenance.
- Availability: CSPaaS modules include instant connection recovery, automated vault activation, and access escalation workflows for emergency continuity.
Firevault CSPaaS is not just Zero Trust — it’s Zero Access by Design unless proven necessary and verified in real time.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Is the CIA Triad still relevant?
- Yes, but it needs reinforcement. Logical-only controls have proven insufficient against modern attack surfaces.
- Can I enforce CIA on hybrid cloud?
- To a point. But hybrid by definition is always connected. Firevault adds true disconnection, not just segmentation.
- What makes Firevault different from traditional backups?
- Firevault is not just storage. It’s an identity-locked, time-controlled vault with no live connections or third-party dependencies.
Firevault’s Verdict
The CIA Triad is the cornerstone of digital security — but today’s threats make it brittle.
Firevault makes CIA resilient. Not just through software, but through physics, process, and policy.
It’s the difference between hoping a lock holds — and removing the door entirely.
