Important characteristics of Information

Information is meaningful data which has to be protected in order to protect the privacy, security, identity of an organization or a person or a nation. An information is called valuable because of few characteristics. The main characteristics which make an information valuable are

1. Confidentiality

Confidentiality ensures that an Information is accessible to only an authorized user. The main pupose of confidentiality is to protect the sensitive information from reaching the wrong hands.It is used to maintain the privacy of the people. Encryption is a good example of confidentiality.

2. Availability

Information should be available to an authorised person when it is requested for. It is the guarantee of access to the authorised individual to information. Keeping all the hardware and software up to date and keeping back up, taking proper recovery measures will ensure availability of data.

3. Integrity

Integrity maintains the correctness or accuracy of the information while the data is in transit, storage or processing. It is the guarantee that information is trust worthy and not tampered. This attribute ensures that an unauthorised person will not be able to modify the data.

RSA digital signature, SHA1 hash codes are good examples.

4. Authentication

It is verifying whether the user, data, transactions involved is genuine. This attribute ensures that only genuine or right people are given access to the information. Login mechanisms can be used to verify the authenticity of users

5. Non-Repuditiation

This is a property of information which is used to holds a person responsible for the information he sent or received. In future, he cannot deny his role in sending or receiving the information.