Trustworthiness

Trustworthiness is a characteristic or property of an information system that expresses the degree to which the system can be expected to preserve the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the information being processed, stored, or transmitted by the system.

Trustworthy information systems are systems that are worthy of being trusted to operate within defined levels of risk despite the environmental disruptions, human errors, and purposeful attacks that are expected to occur in the specified environments of operation. Two factors affecting the trustworthiness of an information system include:
 * Security functionality (i.e., the security-related features or functions employed within an information system or the infrastructure supporting the system); and
 * Security assurance (i.e., the grounds for confidence that the security functionality, when employed within an information system or its supporting infrastructure, is effective in its application).