Parkerian Hexad

In 1998, Donn Parker proposed the Parkerian Hexad, a set of six security elements. They are:

• Availability

• Utility

• Integrity

• Authenticity

• Confidentiality

• Possession

The new two elements:

• Utility: Utility focuses on the usefulness of the information. For instance, a user might have lost the decryption key to access a laptop with encrypted storage. Although the user still has the laptop with its disk(s) intact, they cannot access them. In other words, although still available, the information is in a form that is not useful, i.e., of no utility.

• Possession: This security element requires that we protect the information from unauthorized taking, copying, or controlling. For instance, an adversary might take a backup drive, meaning we lose possession of the information as long as they have the drive. Alternatively, the adversary might succeed in encrypting our data using ransomware; this also leads to the loss of possession of the data.