What aspect of cybersecurity primarily addresses the authentication and authorization of users?

Access control is primarily concerned with the mechanisms that enforce user authentication and authorization within a system. This includes determining who is allowed to access certain resources, how they are authenticated when logging in, and what actions they are permitted to perform based on their identity and permissions.

In a cybersecurity context, access control systems are critical for ensuring that users can only access information and resources that they are authorized to use. This not only protects sensitive data from unauthorized access but also helps maintain overall system integrity by preventing potential malicious activities from authenticated users who may have expanded privileges.

Authentication ensures that users are who they claim to be, typically through methods such as passwords, biometrics, or multi-factor authentication. Authorization then follows to define what those authenticated users can do within the system, such as read, write, or modify data.

While other aspects like data integrity, incident management, and threat detection have their importance in the overall cybersecurity strategy, they do not primarily focus on the procedures and policies for verifying user identities and controlling their access to resources. Data integrity deals with maintaining and verifying the accuracy and consistency of data, incident management involves responding to security incidents, and threat detection focuses on identifying potential security risks.