Where does security collide?

In information security a security is not a thing you hold but a property of a system: the protection of the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information and of the systems that store and move it, often called the CIA triad. The US standard FIPS 199 (National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2004) sets out these three objectives and grades the harm that would follow a loss of each. The referent is a maintained state of protection, upheld by controls and policy, not a tradable claim, a child's confidence in a caregiver, or a nation's freedom from military threat.[1]

Unit

A protected system, graded by the confidentiality, integrity, and availability it maintains

Recovery means

Restoring the protected state after a breach through controls and incident response

Measured by

Assessed by risk categorisation, control audits, and the impact level assigned to a loss of each objective

In developmental psychology security is a child's confidence that a caregiver is available and responsive, the felt experience at the heart of a secure attachment. Sroufe and Waters's 1977 Attachment as an Organizational Construct, in Child Development, argued that attachment is best understood through this felt security rather than through counts of separate behaviours, building on the earlier work of Bowlby and Ainsworth. The referent is an emotional state inside a relationship, read from how a child uses a caregiver as a base, not a tradable claim, a protective property of a computer system, or a state's freedom from threat.[2]

Unit

A child's felt confidence in a caregiver, within one relationship

Recovery means

Responsive care can restore felt security after distress or separation

Measured by

Assessed in the Strange Situation and related observations of how a child uses a caregiver as a secure base

In international relations security is a political community's condition of being free from threat to its survival and core interests, together with the study of how states pursue it. John Herz's 1950 article Idealist Internationalism and the Security Dilemma, in World Politics, named the security dilemma: the steps one state takes to feel safer can leave others feeling less safe, so efforts to gain security can end up reducing it for everyone. The referent is the safety of a political community and the dynamics among states, not a tradable claim, a protective property of a computer system, or a child's confidence in a caregiver.[3]

Unit

A state's freedom from threat to its survival and interests

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Assessed through threat analysis, alliance and armament levels, and study of interstate dynamics