COMPUTER SECURITY

Security : “Data or information security is the protection of data against accidental or intentional, destruction, disclosure or modification”. Computer data Security refers to the technological safeguards and managerial procedure which can be applied to computer hardware, software and data to ensure that organizational and individual privacy are protected.

Computer Security : Computer security can be defined as controls that are put in place to provide confidentiality, integrity, and availability for all components of computer systems. These components include data, software, hardware, and firmware.

Computer Security Tools :

• Firewalls : Firewalls is a software which is used to protect your system against unauthorised access.

There are several types of firewall techniques :

• Packet Filter : Looks at each packet entering or leaving the network and accepts or rejects it based on user-defined rules. Packet filtering is fairly effective and transparent to users, but it is difficult to configure.
• Application gateway : Applies security mechanisms to specific applications, such as FTP and Telnet servers. This is very effective, but can impose a performance degradation.
• Circuit-level gateway : Applies security mechanisms when a TCP or UDP connection is established. Once the connection has been made, packets can flow between the hosts without further checking.
• Proxy server : Intercepts all messages entering and leaving the network. The proxy server effectively hides the true network addresses.
• Cryptographic Techniques : It can be used to defined data in transit between systems, reducing the probability that data exchanged between systems can be intercepted or modified.
• Anti-Virus Program : It is also a software program, developed by programmer. Viruses can be cured with Antivirus program. The Antivirus program perform one or more of the following functions :

(i) Prevention

(ii) Identification or

(iii) Detection

(iv) Damage Control

(v) Vaccination

A good antivirus utility is one which checks whether the system has been infected or not. These program stop the virus from infecting the system. They do not allow modification or executes files e.g. AVG, QUICK HEAL, NORTRAN, ESAT, AVIRA, AVAST, KASPERSKY, BIT DEFENDER etc.

• Encryption : It is used to protect the message from the eye of others. It can be done in several ways by switching the characters around, replacing characters with others and even removing characters from the message.
• Pinging : The ping (Packet InterNet Groper) application can be used by potential crackers to find if an IP address is reachable. If cracker finds a computer they can try a port scan to detect and attack services on that computer.
• Honey Pots : A honey pot is an information system resource whose value lies in unauthorized or illicit use of that resource. Or in other word, A honey pot is a computer system on the internet that is expressly set up to attract and “tap” people who attempt to penetrate other people’s computer systems.

Note :  International Computer Security Day comes on November 30 for every year. This day is celebrated to create awareness on computer security issues and uplift people to secure the personal information stored on their computer.

Important Points :