Building A More Secure System

Lawton, G. (2008). Is it finally time to worry about mobile malware? Computer, 41(5), 12-14.

Although the local authority takes the lead on safeguarding children and young people, and have an all-encompassing responsibility for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of all children and young people in their local area, safeguarding is everyone's responsibility when coming into contact with children and young people. All local agencies, including the police, health service and schools, have clearly defined roles and responsibilities under the Children Act 2004. They must not only promote the well-being of children but ensure that they safeguard children whilst carrying out their day-to-day functions. They must cooperate with local authorities in doing this

As basic users, security is one feature that most of us overlook when it comes to operating systems until it is too late. In this paper we will discuss the security flaws within the Windows Operating system, and then discuss countermeasures to fix the system flaw.

This paper will discuss three main operating systems, Windows, Linux, and OS X. All three of these operating systems have features which are unique unto themselves. Although there may be arguments as to which one of these three operating systems is better it really all comes down to what features are needed for each user. This paper will describe the features that each of these operating systems has to offer.

When installing any operating system regardless of whether it is a Linux or windows based operating system it is essential that steps are taken to ensure the security of the operating systems. Ensuring the security of an installed operating system before for it is put into use is known as system hardening. System hardening is done by taking known vulnerabilities in an operating system and making security enhancement to mitigate these vulnerabilities. Thus, it is important to know the vulnerabilities which are posed by each operating system and the ways in which they can be mitigate. Below are three common vulnerabilities in windows operating system and recommendations on how to mitigate them.

As such, he introduces a technique of identifying a spectrum of potential vulnerabilities and suggests procedures to deal with them. Systems Specification and High Order Language Implementation are categorized as items of high risk to attacks. Security Policy and Machine Language Implementation are classified as items of moderate risk of being vulnerable to attacks. Circuits Electronics and Device Physics are of low and very low risks respectively. He also discusses potential threats such as deceiving operating systems to grant access to file or data to unauthorized users through direct (overt) and indirect (convert) channels. Walker also says that lack of precise definition of trusted operating systems and the higher cost of building them are the significant drawbacks faced by the vendors. Vendors are concerned that if they build trusted operating systems, they might not be accepted by their customers. The only solution suggested by the author was to have someone or a company builds it, shares the technology used, and convinces the general public on the significance of it. Once it becomes accepted, then there will be a widespread use of trusted computer operating systems.

The article, which addresses security loopholes in modern computing environments, by Loscocco et al highlights what is and has been being done security wise in the past and how secure these implementations were and going forward what should be done to ensure in depth security which guarantees system wide security (1998). The article first explains features of secure operating system and why current systems implemented under the notion of application space security ultimately failed to safe guard the integrity and confidentiality of our assets. The article then continued with general examples of access control and cryptography implemented in the application space with no or little support from operating system and showed their vulnerabilities to attacks such as tampering, bypassing and spoofing. The article supplied real-life examples to support the evidence that building security in the application space without secure operating system is meaningless. The article raised concrete examples on mobile code security, Kerberos network authentication service, IPSEC and SSL network security protocols and firewall. The paper finally put an interesting remark that security implemented in application space without secure operating system is like “building a house in a pile of sand” and it also emphasized that secure operating system without better security on the

Computers have become part of our daily complex lives; we depend heavily on computers to help break our complicated lives down. Most people now prefer to do things the digital way and so does companies. Most of trading (buying and selling) is now online which requires computers. In order to satisfy our hunger for digital living, there is a need for technology called the operating system to carry out the activities we require our computers to do. Computers and technology come in different forms and sizes and due to the capitalistic nature of our economy everyone is allowed to come up with their own form of computer and even the technology to run it. In recent years’ companies have gained interest doing business digitally and since software have become easier to write or code, it is also vulnerable- easy for programmers to access and exploit called hacking. Hackers are unapproved clients who break into a technological framework, change or decimate data, frequently by introducing hazardous malware without the insight and assent of the host company. Companies are now at risk of losing much more than money by doing business the digital way. It is in this view that the Security Exchange

Computer viruses have been around just about as long as the personal computer has existed. With the advent of the Internet, the ability of viruses to rapidly spread has increased substantially. Despite this increase in capability to infect large numbers of computers across international borders, the definition of a computer virus has not substantially changed over

The nature of the cyber threat has changed dramatically over the past 25 years. In the early days of the personal computer, hackers were mostly motivated by the lulz, or laughs. They hacked computer systems just to prove that they could do it or to make a point. One of the very first computer viruses to infect IBM PCs was the Brain virus, created in 1986 by brothers Amjad Farooq Alvi and Basit Farooq, aged 24 and 17, of Lahore, Pakistan. Their virus was intended to be innocuous in nature, to stop others from pirating the software the brothers had spent years developing. Brain worked by infecting the boot sector of a floppy disk as a means of preventing its copying and allowed the brothers to track illegal copies of their own software. The brothers, upset that others were pirating their software without paying for it, included an ominous warning which appeared on infected users screens:

The purpose of this research paper is to investigate the huge problem that the world is facing when it comes to malware and the infection of the world’s large smart phone community. In the world today there are over 7 billion phones that is at risk, I will be looking to identify some of the threats. We will also tackle the issue of combating the attacks of malware. Malware can be very costly and dangerous to the everyday person. Apple machine was once thought to safe from malware and viruses; however, the security of the Apple that was perceived by most has come to a halt. Earlier this year in January, a new tech support scam found its way onto iMacs and MacBook’s, and froze the user’s system by repeatedly opening iTunes. The installed malware

Diverse strides and measures can be taken to guarantee your security and to ensure that your PC stays safe from PC infections. By proceeding with these strides and measures you can without much of a stretch shield yourself and spare yourself from getting assaulted by programmers.

In the article “Privacy and Security Toward More Secure Software,” Dorothy Denning mentioned two proposals to diminish the number of flaws found in software security. The first proposal is for the U.S. government to control vulnerability market dilemma. The second is to hold software companies responsible for software faults. The present market forces do not put adequate pressure on software companies to provide security for their products. Denning stated that the National Institute Standards and Technology added 7,937 vulnerabilities to the National Vulnerability Database. Companies employ security researchers whose responsibilities include identification of security flaws in the software for purposes of strengthening software security.

Computer viruses are minute program which is “embedded inside an application or within a data file which can copy itself into another program“(Adams et al, 2008 ) for the sole determination of meddling with normal computer operations. The consequences may range from corruption and deletion of data; propagation of virus on to network and deployment through attachments through emails in order to further creating havoc to all associated computing devices.

This report will outline that it would be useful for our company to subsidize free distribution of anti-virus software to our home users. There will be analysis of the connection between the company 's network and home users and how this will help our company 's problems with viruses. I will discuss the other issues besides providing free software to home users that affect the network security of our firm. Additionally, I will describe the roles of top management/non-IT management, IT professionals, and end-users in maintaining network security. Finally, I will bring out the role that Robert Vamosi envisions for corporate customers relative to free antivirus software based on his article, “Antivirus software must be free,