Computer security is a field of computer science concerned with the control of risks related to computer use. The means traditionally taken to realize this objective is to attempt to create a secure computing platform, designed so that agents (users or programs) can only perform actions that have been allowed. This involves specifying and implementing a security policy. The actions in question can be reduced to operations of access, modification and deletion. Computer security can be seen as a subfield of security engine ...

Including:

• Computer security - Computer security by design
• Computer security - Early history of security by design
• Computer security - Techniques for creating secure systems
• Computer security - Capabilities vs. ACLs
• Computer security - Other uses of the term trusted
• Computer security - Notable persons in computer security

Read more here: » Computer security: Encyclopedia - Computer security

The following techniques can be used in engineering secure systems. These techniques, whilst useful, do not of themselves ensure security. One security maxim is "a security system is no stronger than its weakest link" Automated theorem proving and other verification tools can enable critical algorithms and code used in secure systems to be mathematically proven to meet their specifications. Thus simple microkernels can be written so that we can be sure they don't contain any bugs: eg EROS[1] and Coyotos[2]. A b ...

See also:

Computer security, Computer security - Computer security by design, Computer security - Early history of security by design, Computer security - Techniques for creating secure systems, Computer security - Capabilities vs. ACLs, Computer security - Other uses of the term trusted, Computer security - Notable persons in computer security

Read more here: » Computer security: Encyclopedia II - Computer security - Techniques for creating secure systems

The term "trusted" is often applied to operating systems that meet different levels of the common criteria, some of which are discussed above as the techniques for creating secure systems. A computer industry group led by Microsoft has used the term "trusted system" to include making computer hardware that could impose restrictions on how people use their computers. The project is called the Trusted Computing ...

See also:

Computer security, Computer security - Computer security by design, Computer security - Early history of security by design, Computer security - Techniques for creating secure systems, Computer security - Capabilities vs. ACLs, Computer security - Other uses of the term trusted, Computer security - Notable persons in computer security

Read more here: » Computer security: Encyclopedia II - Computer security - Other uses of the term trusted

Within computer systems, the two fundamental means of enforcing privilege separation are access control lists (ACLs) and capabilities. The semantics of ACLs have been proven to be insecure in many situations (e.g., Confused deputy problem). It has also been shown that ACL's promise of giving access to an object to only one person can never be guaranteed in practice. Both of these problems are resolved by capabilities. This does not mean practical flaws exist in all ACL-based systems — only that the designers of certain utilities must take ...

See also:

Computer security, Computer security - Computer security by design, Computer security - Early history of security by design, Computer security - Techniques for creating secure systems, Computer security - Capabilities vs. ACLs, Computer security - Other uses of the term trusted, Computer security - Notable persons in computer security

Read more here: » Computer security: Encyclopedia II - Computer security - Capabilities vs. ACLs

There are two different approaches to security in computing. One focuses mainly on external threats, and generally treats the computer system itself as a trusted system. This philosophy is discussed in the computer insecurity article. The other, discussed in this article, regards the computer system itself as largely an untrusted system, and redesigns it to make it more secure in a number of ways. This technique enforces privilege separation, where an entity has only the privileges that are needed for its function. That way, ev ...

See also:

Computer security, Computer security - Computer security by design, Computer security - Early history of security by design, Computer security - Techniques for creating secure systems, Computer security - Capabilities vs. ACLs, Computer security - Other uses of the term trusted, Computer security - Notable persons in computer security

Read more here: » Computer security: Encyclopedia II - Computer security - Computer security by design