Computer security

A strong factor in the early development of computers was security – the computations that motivated their development, such as decrypting intercepted messages, generating gunnery tables, and developing weapons, had military applications. But the computers themselves were so big and so few that they were relatively easy to protect simply by limiting physical access to them to their programmers and operators. Today, computers have shrunk so that a web server can be hidden in a matchbox and have become so common that few people can give an accurate count of the number they have in their homes and automobiles, much less the number they use in the course of a day. Computers constantly communicate with one another; an isolated computer is crippled. The meaning and implications of “computer security” have changed over the years as well. This paper reviews major concepts and principles of computer security as it stands today. It strives not to delve deeply into specific technical areas such as operating system security, access control, network security, intrusion detection, and so on, but to paint the topic with a broad brush. Published online: 27 July 2001