Confidentiality ensures that only authorized persons can see specified information. Unlike the cases described in the previous section, information security enables organizations to maintain trade secrets. Control determines who is authorized to access and possess information. For example, a software vendor may want to control who can access the software it is attempting to sell over the Internet so it can maintain profit margins. Authenticity means that corporate and individual identities can be confirmed that the information provided has not been tampered with.
Availability ensures that information can be accessed over the Internet.
Availability can be compromised through system failures that result from hardware problems or denial of service attacks. When all parties in ebusiness transactions have security systems in place to provide these capabilities, they can rest assured that their ebusiness operations are following solid business practices. However, when one of the parties in a transaction does not follow these policies, that organization can compromise business dealings for all of its trading partners. As Howard Schmidt, Corporate Security Officer of Microsoft notes, Security is only as good as the weakest link in the chain. If I do business with someone who has a lower level of security than I do, my security is weakened and this affects my business model.