Availability

In Brief

The ‘availability’ of an asset within an entity is the assurance that it can be used in terms of time and expected performance. Security measures intended to guarantee the availability of assets must, therefore, ensure that a resource remains usable in terms of capacity and planned time.

Threats Jeopardising Availability

Here is a non-exhaustive list of EBIOS threats that can jeopardise the availability of an asset:

Physical damage

Fire
Water damage
Pollution
Major disaster
Destruction of equipment or supports
Dust, corrosion, frost

Natural events

Climatic phenomenon
Seismic phenomenon
Volcanic phenomenon
Meteorological phenomenon
Raw

Loss of essential services

Air conditioning failure
Energy Power Loss
Loss of telecommunication

Distribution due to radiation

Electromagnetic radiation
Thermal radiation
Electromagnetic pulses (EMI)

Compromise of information

Theft of media or documents
Theft of equipment

Technical failures

Hardware failure
Equipment malfunction
Information system saturation
Software malfunction
Attack on the maintainability of the information system

Unauthorised actions

Illegal use of materials
Use of counterfeit or copied software
Illegal data processing

Compromise of functions

User error
Abuse of rights
Usurpation of rights
Denial of service
Impairment of staff availability