Information assurance (IA) is the practice of protecting and defending information systems by ensuring their availability, confidentiality, integrity, authentication, and nonrepudiation. As a discipline, IA grew from the practice of information security. It plays a crucial role in a networked infrastructure of e-commerce, e-business, and e-Government. For this reason, IA is a serious worldwide concern of organizations, industry, governments, and academia. This paper provides a brief introduction on information assurance, the benefits it brings, and the challenges in the implementation of the concept.