Protection of Operating Systems

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Protection of Operating SystemsWrite a paper discussing the relative advantages and disadvantages of at least three different measuresused to protect operating systems. The ease of implementation and the associated security managementissuesshould also be addressed. Finally, the paper should include a ranking of the measures from bestto worst with supporting rationale.Protection of Operating SystemsIntroductionThe use of computer operating systems has increased significantly across arange of applications and utilizations within the last few years. These range fromtheir utilization in all forms of business operation, but also in terms of systemsecurity, and all software applications. User have come to rely on the operatingsystems being used as a primary means of accessing both command line interfaces(CLI) and graphical user interfaces (GUI) which will serve as the way in whichapplications and data are accessed as well as providing all of the necessaryinformation required for ongoing requirements (UMUC, 2011).Businesses themselves will count on operating systems as a primary meansof addressing and providing the fundamental security elements of:Confidentiality;Integrity;Availability;Authenticity.While many operating systems have incorporated a wide range of controls bywhich it would be possible to mitigate and address these types of security concerns,

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it is also apparent that there needs to be a range of additional measures which aretaken in order to deliver the highest possible level of security and minimize thelikelihood of any such issues being apparent.Accordingly, measures concerning identification and authentication in terms oftheir ensuing protection are fundamentally important. In advance of any user or evensystem administrator being able to connect to, and utilize a system, there needs tobe a range of security measures implemented which ensures that the identity ischecked and the user authenticated before any type of access is granted. This will,however, be designed as a first level of identification and authentication which isdesigned to provide them with the minimum possible level of access required inorder to use the system accordingly.Various access control measures will be implemented which limits the extentto which other systems or applications, and related information can be accessed orviewed even by an authenticated user. Certain users will have elevated access–which may be contingent on them providing an additional login which is designed tosupport this specific requirement–with HR and IT users specifically being regularlyused as an example of when such access would be required.External and internal communications should also be monitored accordingly,as the greater the level of communication allowed, then the correspondingly greaterwill be any potential surface area for an attack. As a result, there may be arequirement to limit certain user typesfrom being able to engage in externalcommunication if it is not part of their specificroles or responsibilities.Based on this underlying concept it is possible to evaluate ways in whichnetwork operating systems can be protected to facilitate their ongoing role within an

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organization for example. As administrators have full control and access to thesesystems then they also have the ability to configure and implement a wide range ofsettings, including third party applications which will be designed to increase theprotection of systems as well as increase the visibility of any potential issue or threat.Recent versions of the major operating system platforms have all sought tointroduce a variety of additional features, such as advanced firewalls and networkaccess protection so that they can be considered as relatively secure once deployedout of the box. However, this does not preclude any addition of third-party solutionsfor example.In order to determine the type of measures which would be most beneficial insecurity terms it is important to understand the different levels of impact which anissue could result in. It is possible to defineeach type of vulnerability with a specificlevel of severity and this can be used to prioritize the measures which are thenimplemented as a means of addressing them. For example, a high severity ratingwould be given to any issue whereby an attacker or intruder could gainadministrative access to a system housing critical data. Medium severity would relatein the ability to remotely access systems with standard or non-privileged credentialswhile low severity would relate to local access being achieved with standard or non-privileged credentials. As outlined in terms of standard procedures and bestpractices a summary of available measures and their need to be applied is defined inthe below table (Zeltzer, 2005):MeasureRatingIdentification and Authentication protection measuresHighBadge Access Control SystemHighAccess ControlHigh

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