Protection and Security of OS

6 min readDec 21, 2020

1. Introduction

Computer system consists of many resources, these resources are categorized into two types, one is hardware resources. It includes memory, CPU time, I/O devices etc. Second one is software resources. It includes files, programs and abstract data types. These resources need to be protected from unauthorized usage or misuse.

Protection and security requires that computer resources such as CPU, memory, disk, software programs, and most importantly data/information stored in the computer system are protected. Computer security tactics aren’t often thought about until a problem arises — and at that point, a break in security can cause harmful and potentially major issues. If a computer program is run by an unauthorized user, then he/she may cause severe damage to computer or data stored in it, therefore the main goal is to prevent unauthorized access to a program and to improve the reliability by detecting latent errors. Computer protection and security mechanisms provided by an operating system must address the following requirements:

2. The CIA Triad:

The CIA Triad of confidentiality, integrity and availability is considered the core underpinning of information security. Every security control and every security vulnerability can be viewed in light of one or more of these key concepts. For a security program to be considered comprehensive and complete, it must adequately address the entire CIA Triad.

Confidentiality: The requirement that information maintained by a computer system be accessible only by authorized parties.
Integrity: The requirement that a computer system’s resources can be modified only by authorized parties.
Availability: The requirement that a computer system be accessible at required times by authorized parties.

3. Threats to Protection and Security

3.1 Program Threats

Operating system’s processes and kernel do the designated task as instructed. If a user program made these process do malicious tasks, then it is known as Program Threats. One of the common example of program threat is a program installed in a computer which can store and send user credentials via network to some hacker.

Some of the common threats that occur in a system are −

Virus

Viruses are generally small snippets of code embedded in a system. They are very dangerous and can corrupt files, destroy data, crash systems etc. They can also spread further by replicating themselves as required.

Trojan Horse

A Trojan horse or Trojan is a type of malware that is often disguised as legitimate software. Trojans can be employed by cyber-thieves and hackers trying to gain access to users’ systems. Users are typically tricked by some form of social engineering into loading and executing Trojans on their systems. Once activated, Trojans can enable cyber-criminals to spy on you, steal your sensitive data, and gain backdoor access to your system.

Trap Door

A trap door is a secret entry point into a program that allows someone that is aware of the trap door to gain access without going through the usual security access procedures. Trap doors become threats when they are used by unscrupulous programmers to gain unauthorized access.

Logic Bomb

Logic bomb is a situation when a program misbehaves only when certain conditions met otherwise it works as a genuine program. It is harder to detect.

3.2 System Threats

System threats refers to misuse of system services and network connections to put user in trouble. System threats can be used to launch program threats on a complete network called as program attack. System threats creates such an environment that operating system resources/ user files are misused.

Worm

A worm can destroy a system by using its resources to extreme levels. It can generate multiple copies which claim all the resources and don’t allow any other processes to access them. A worm can shut down a whole network in this way.

Denial of Service

A denial of service (DoS) event is a cyber attack in which hackers or cybercriminals seek to make a host machine, online service or network resource unavailable to its intended users. Distributed denial of service attacks may be the most well-known type of hacking incident — the 2018 GitHub and 2016 Dyn DDoS attacks being the most prominent.

Port Scanning

Port scanning is a mechanism or means by which a hacker can detects system vulnerabilities to make an attack on the system.

4. Protection and Security Against Threats:

The different methods that may provide protect and security for different computer systems are −

Antivirus software

Antivirus software protects your device from viruses that can destroy your data, slow down or crash your device, or allow spammers to send email through your account. Antivirus protection scans your files and your incoming email for viruses, and then deletes anything malicious.

Encryption

The basic idea of encryption is to encode a message so that only the desired recipient can decode and read it. Even if the encrypted message is intercepted, the intruder has to guess which cipher the sender used to encrypt the message. The time and difficulty of guessing this information is what makes encryption such a valuable security tool.

Authentication

This deals with identifying each user in the system and making sure they are who they claim to be. The operating system makes sure that all the users are authenticated before they access the system.

One Time Password

These passwords provide a lot of security for authentication purposes. A one time password can be generated exclusively for a login every time a user wants to enter the system. It cannot be used more than once.

End User License Agreement

Read the fine print! Read the terms of any End User License Agreement and identify additional software that comes with the application you wish to install. Click Cancel if it seems that malware could be installed.

Firewalling to Protect Systems and Networks

Firewalls are devices ( or sometimes software ) that sit on the border between two security domains and monitor/log activity between them, sometimes restricting the traffic that can pass between them based on certain criteria. For example a firewall router may allow HTTP: requests to pass through to a web server inside a company domain while not allowing telnet, ssh, or other traffic to pass through.

5. Conclusion

From the user’s perspective, for an operating system to be “secure” the operating system should provide services like, memory protection, file protection, general object access control and user authentication. And an effective and consistent provision of such services make an operating system “trusted”. There exist a number of threats that hamper the smooth functioning of an operating system but we can conclude by saying that taking proper protective measures against such threats can surely help us to prevent malware attacks.