Computer Security
- What Exactly Is It?
by:
Ciontescu Molie
Although the term
'computer security' is used a lot, the content of a computer is actually
vulnerable to only a few risks unless the computer is connected to others on a
network. As the use of computer networks (especially the Internet) has increased
dramatically during the past few years, the term computer security is now used
to describe issues referring to the networked use of computers and their
resources.
The major
technical areas of computer security are confidentiality, integrity and
authentication/availability.
-
Confidentiality, also known as secrecy or privacy, means that the information
you own cannot be accessed by unauthorized parties. Breaches of
confidentiality range from the embarrassing to the disastrous.
-
Integrity means
that your information is protected against unauthorized changes that are
undetectable to authorized users. The integrity of databases and other
resources are usually compromised through hacking.
-
Authentication
means that an user is who he claims to be.
-
Availability
means that the resources are accessible by authorized parties. Examples of
availability attacks are the 'denial of service' attacks.
Other important
things that the computer security professionals are concerned about are access
control and nonrepudiation. Access control refer not only to the fact that users
can only access the resources and services they are entitled to, but also to the
fact that they can't be denied to access the resources they legitimately expect.
Nonrepudiation means that a person who sends a message cannot deny he sent it
and vice versa.
In addition to
these technical aspects, the concept of computer security is very large.
Computer security's roots are drawn from disciplines like ethics and risk
analysis and the major topics that are concerning it are computer crime (tries
to prevent, detect and remedy attacks) and identity/anonymity in cyberspace.
Although
confidentiality, integrity and authenticity are the most important things when
it comes to computer security in general, for everyday internet users, privacy
is the most important one, because many people think that they have nothing to
hide or the information they give doesn't seem sensitive when they register with
an internet service/site.
But remember
that, on the internet, information is very easily shared among companies and
small pieces of related information from different sources can be linked
together to form something alot more complex about a person. Because of this,
nowadays, the ability to maintain control over what information is collected
about them, who may use it and how it can be used is extremely important.
by-http://www.itfreaks.com.
