Before we dive deeper into DevSecOps, pipeline hardening, or detection rules — let’s take a step back.

At the core of all information security — from securing a Kubernetes cluster to locking down access to GitHub — there’s a deceptively simple model: the CIA Triad.

No, not that CIA.
This one stands for: Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability.

It’s a foundational concept in security, and if you get this right, a lot of other decisions (tools, processes, architecture) make more sense.

🔐 Confidentiality: Who should see it?

Confidentiality is about protecting sensitive data from being accessed by the wrong people. That might mean:

Encrypting secrets in CI/CD pipelines
Restricting access to production logs
Avoiding hardcoded credentials in repos (👀 looking at you, .env files)
Public access to private repositories

The idea: If someone gets access who shouldn’t, confidentiality is broken.

🧬 Integrity: Can we trust it?

Integrity is about ensuring data and systems haven’t been tampered with — intentionally or accidentally.

Examples:

Checksums or hashes for artifacts
Code signing
Using git to track and verify code changes
Protecting against supply chain attacks

If what you’re building, deploying, or storing isn’t what you think it is — that’s an integrity failure.

📶 Availability: Can we reach it?

Availability is simple: Is it up when it’s supposed to be?

Security isn't just about blocking access — it’s also about making sure systems and services stay reliably accessible to the right people.

This means:

Resilient architecture
Rate limiting vs DoS protection
Monitoring + alerting
Backups and incident response plans

If an attacker takes down your system with a DDoS or you misconfigure firewall rules and lock out everyone — availability is lost.

🧠 Why it matters — even in DevSecOps

When you understand the CIA triad, security becomes less about "adding tools" and more about intentional decisions:

Is this control improving confidentiality?
Does this step protect integrity?
Will this change impact availability?

Whether you’re a developer, DevOps engineer, or working in security — keeping CIA in mind helps you build more secure systems by design, not just patch holes after the fact.

🚀 What’s next?

This post is part of a series where I’ll dig into real-world DevSecOps, secure CI/CD pipelines, and building security culture in development teams.

Want more posts like this? Follow or connect with me on LinkedIn.

Let’s keep making secure development a default — not an afterthought.

— Saulius

The CIA Triad: The Simple Model Behind All Security