What is Integrity?
Integrity Definition: Guarding against improper information modification or destruction and includes ensuring information non-repudiation and authenticity.
Understanding Integrity
Guarding against improper information modification or destruction and includes ensuring information non-repudiation and authenticity. Integrity ensures data and systems remain accurate, complete, and unaltered by unauthorized means. It provides assurance that information has not been tampered with during storage, processing, or transmission. Integrity is one of the three principles in the CIA triad and is required by numerous regulations including ISO 27001, NIST CSF, and regulations like SOX and HIPAA. Organizations implement integrity through hash functions, digital signatures, checksums, version control, access controls, and change management processes. For example, a financial application might use database constraints to enforce data integrity, digital signatures to verify transaction integrity, and checksums to verify software integrity during updates. Related terms: Data integrity, System integrity, Hash function, Digital signature, Message authentication code MAC, Non-repudiation, Checksum.