Protection And Security Of Operating System

Security is refereed as providing a protection system to computer system resources such as CPU, memory, disk, software programs and most importantly data/information stored in the computer system.

if computer program is run by an unauthorized user, then that un unauthorized user may cause severe damage to computer or data stored in it. So computer systems must be protected against unauthorized access malicious access to system memory, viruses, worms, etc.

Early Happened Attacks:

WannaCry ransomware attack:

This WannaCry ransomware attack was a May 2017 worldwide cyberattack by the WannaCry ransomware cryptoworm, which targeted computers running the Microsoft windows operating system by encrypting data and demanding ransom payments in the Bitcoin Cryptocurrency. The attack was estimated to have affected more than 200,000 computers across 150 countries, with total damages ranging from hundreds of millions to billions of dollars.

Attack On Adobe: Adobe originally reported that hacker had stolen  nearly 3 million encrypted customer credit card records, plus login data for an undetermined number of user accounts.

 Different  Threats to Protection and Security :

Virus:-Viruses are generally small snippets of code embedded in a system. These viruses 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 can secretly access the login details of our system. Then a malicious user can use these to enter the system as a harmless being and wreak havoc.

Trap Door:-A trap door is a security breach that may be present in a system without the knowledge of the particular users. It can be exploited to harm the data or files in a system by malicious people.

Worm:-A worm can destroy a system by using its resources to at 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 also  shut down a whole network in this way.

Denial Service:-These type of attacks do not allow the legitimate users to access a system. It overwhelms the system with requests so it is overwhelmed and cannot work properly for other user.

So above are the collection of different types of attacks happen with operating system so for protecting our systems from such kind of attacks we need a good security system,

So let see the 

Different Protection and Security Methods

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. The different ways to make sure that the users are authentic are:

  1)Username/Password:-Each user has a distinct username and password combination and they need to enter it correctly before they can access the system.

  2)User Key/ User Card:-The users need to punch a card into the card slot or use they individual key on a keypad to access the system.

 3)User Attribute Identification:-Different user attribute identifications that can be used are fingerprint, eye retina etc. These are unique for each user and are compared with the existing samples in the database. The user can only access the system if there is a match.

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. The various ways a one time password can be implemented are −

 I) Random Numbers:-The system can ask for numbers that correspond to alphabets that are pre  arranged. This combination can be changed each time a login is required.

II) Secret Key:-A hardware device can create a secret key related to the user id for login. This key can change each time.