So far, we've looked at two of the three components of the CIA triad. Now it's time to look at the third and final part of the CIA triad, which is availability. Simply put, availability deals with the issues revolving around the loss of access to a resource, such as a file or computer or even a whole network, as we will see in this chapter. As you can imagine, a loss of availability is a big issue mainly due to the fact that if you can't access something, no matter what that might be, it essentially becomes worthless to you until you can gain access to it again. It's also not too much of a stretch to say that the loss of access to an item also is quite frustrating as it means you may be unable to complete your job or task until such access is reacquired.
Let's think about this for a second when we discuss the concept of availability. Imagine...