Future of Operating System Security - Essay Example

FUTURE OF COMPUTER SECURITY By Name Course Instructor Institution City/State Date Future of Operating system Security Introduction Computer Security is a challenging and versatile field, and so making certain personal data privacy, stopping illegal computer systems’ access, guaranteeing back-up emergency strategies after data loss as well as securing systems from activities that are malicious like worms and viruses is crucial. Computer system is exposed just like large computer systems and servers run by business organizations and as a result, computer security interest has become high. Operating system assets consist of the applications programs, and importantly, data (Pfleeger, 2006, p.192). Security threats are situations or actions that present possible loss of or damage to availability, integrity, or confidentiality through interception (passive wiretapping or eavesdropping), alteration (authenticity compromise, falsification, as well as active wiretapping), in addition to denial of service (DoS). The operating system is the most vital program running a computer, and so all general-purpose computers have to boast an operating system so as to run other programs. Basically, OS carry out basic undertakings, like recognizing keyboard input, conveying output to the display screen, keeping directories and files track on the disk, as well as regulating peripheral devices like printers and disk drives (Kabachinski, 2010, p.405). For bigger systems, the OS has even bigger responsibilities as well as controls. When operating system together with its components are well architected, designed, and structured, the ensuing system offers solid security and steers clear of possible single failure points; therefore, the essay seeks to provide a critical insight about future of operating system security. Discussion Usually, operating systems make use of various copies of the same software, with several or all of computer systems getting a copy. This software similarity, integrated with connectivity, connotes that any error in one software copy can result in spread of vulnerabilities across scores of computer systems. Modern operating systems have a remarkable and rising range of single-point solutions to security threats, ranging from uncomplicated methods of authentication to advanced management of identity. Capitalizing on features of operating system security is hard given that topology and geography are key factors. These two factors dictate legal jurisdictions as well as ownership boundaries, especially for software and it is tough control and monitor all data from one point. In the future, it is argued that operating systems will not carefully map onto the specific range of application systems, and also legacy systems will offer local incompatibilities. Even so, gateway machines are a suitable point for making computer databases secure and complete coverage of OS is not at all times crucial for value to be obtained from analysis of security, for the reason that valuable intelligence may be sourced from software samples. Besides that, there will be distinct benefits in situating security measures within operating systems, in that one will achieve a more affluent depiction of user behavior, facilitating easy assessment of user activities in the perspective of the wider community (Gelernter, 2003). Actually, events visibility and comprehension of context will be the keys to successful security as well as risk management. The legality and implication of user behavior will be reliant on context, changing with regard to the level of user authorization, source location, data sensitivity, and method utilised. Insider threat has been one of the major security concerns, and in response to this, business organizations will deploy scores of fascinating security measures in their operating systems so as to detect abnormal user actions. Important intelligence will be achieved by mining, fusing as well as profiling IT activity, traffic patterns or message content. Furthermore, linguistic analyses together with psychological profiling are still in their formative years but present enormous capability for the future. Privacy, obviously, will still be an overriding issue; however, security solutions will be developed to overcome the risks for various applications. Unawareness of privacy concerns is a larger predicament, as verified by the latest resolution by the Department of Homeland Security in U.S. to scrap a go-getting $42 million datamining tool for antiterrorism subsequent to investigators realizing that the tool was being experimented with data concerning real people devoid of sufficient protections. An additional key OS security concern will be lack of stability in implementing policies that are good enough to use. Nearly all of current policies are poorly drafted, outdated and feebly communicated. The latter challenges can in the future be solved by putting much effort, but implementation will need security technology to recognize, record as well as stop unsuitable or illegal utilisation of services. This can currently be realized instantaneously at the OS level, but in the future it will become more challenging for every organization. According to Ramachandran (2002, p.251), OS security solutions will continue being a crucial basis of security intelligence for the reason that they will notice blocked or failed transactions, offering a exceptional insight into sought attacks. This will be a crucial area for the reason that behind each key event there are scores of inconsequential events, so smart security will be espoused considering that it involves learning from the little incidents to avert the bigger incidents from occurring. Additionally, OS security solutions will as well offer a helpful point upon which illegal transfers of private data will be easily discovered and blocked. Subsequent to the current epidemic of high-status data infringements, this will become the main goal for lots of organizations whereby they will be able to deploy encryption in file systems (Sekar et al., 2012, p.4). In this regard, encryption will protect data from going through unreceptive systems, but also it could be an obstacle to analysis of content. Even though encryption utilisation is still growing, Pfleeger (2006, p.211) posits that there will all the time be lots of instances where applications have to clearly communicate. The computer world has shifted to personal-area networks from mainframes networks, and ultimately will move to nanotechnology as well as smart dust; thus will create more security challenges for operating systems. Even though, the future of OS security could be far from definite, Post (2003, p.464) posits that OS security will remain being crucial in maintaining control of the system. Still, OS security will without doubt become more refined and richer than current. Data usage patterns, topologies, protocols, as well as applications, are always ever-changing., and so the future OS will be equipped with sophisticated technologies that offer higher accessible bandwidth, quick routing, delivery of content through highly developed applications. With regard to offered services, future OS are envisioned to sustain ubiquitous accessibility as well as flawless mobility regardless of the setting; offer international access to data that are otherwise closed, like military, medical, and governmental data. What’s more, the future OS will heighten the desire for worldwide confidentiality and authentication frameworks, in addition to accessibility of data and services (Schubert et al., 2009, p.44). Security threats will increase drastically after the devices are expanded to trillions, through inter-connecting on the access level mobile or integrated things that supervise users’ locations and actions. Additionally, future OS will support complicated services that study users’ likings as well as enlarge the utilization of social networks; thus, creating the need for highly developed privacy frameworks (Zuo & O’Keefe, 2007, p.451). The accessible digital content will increase, thus, improving the needs for strong and flexible methods for Digital Rights Management (DRM. Importantly, there will be change to a data-centric model, where multiple services will be organized according to the information that is either distributed for certified subscribers or circulated publicly. As the Internet continues to grow, malicious behavior also escalates in terms of regularity, extent, complexity and effect. Even so, countermeasures for privacy and security will turn out to be more vital than ever (Orman, 2013, p.83). And so a great deal of effort will be devoted towards creating methods of mitigating the potential scale of these OS security threats. Nevertheless, current methods depend on certain attributes that differ with time, and so they are inapplicable in the future OS systems. OS security techniques intended for the future operating systems have to function separately from the OS characteristics as well as design. Furthermore, computer privacy and security mechanisms are projected to be flexible and adaptive adequately to be strong in domains where there are attacks and vulnerabilities, and adequately scalable to lengthen their countermeasures to numerous areas of control. Doubting Thomas can dismiss disk encryption as just a simple technology trend, but these mind-set brushes off its significance to privacy. In the future, big companies will espouse prosperous software and hardware applications, and workers and customers will embrace novel mobile devices as well as consumer technologies. Undoubtedly, new computer processes are cropping up every day, and so the notions around OS security will continue being real as well as hard to overlook. Given that all proof confirm that cloud computing are the future trend, it is vitally imperative to figure out how they will be secured. The present security paradigms have failed to function effectively, so it they will be a mismatch for the context-aware and user-centric of the operating systems. Matthews (2006, p.1) holds the view that security of OS will need an entirely novel paradigm; coming as an architecture instead as a chain of fractured components. In addition, architecture for operating system security will not be offered by one vendor only, instead the architecture will advance as key vendors collaborate to provide authenticated solutions, technology standards, solutions guidelines and lastly an all-inclusive framework for OS security, which can be used in any computer system. For that reason, networking executives, Chief Information Officers (CIOs), and Chief information security officers have to acknowledge that operating systems will require insightful changes in security. Besides that, intelligent IT managers will work out a phased change plan, follow OS security guidelines of the vendors, and collaborate with thoughtful leaders and product in this advancement. Internet traffic will triple in the coming four years, and so OS systems will have to be both secure and fast, and prepared to handle the vast data quantities that will be conveyed in the system. The majority of OS security solutions were created when network traffic just comprised of web, email and not many business applications, and identifying threats was easier, but this will in future change (Ullah & Tariq, 2011, p.419). Since security solutions keep depending on out-of-date technologies and techniques, failing to level with changes to computer infrastructure, threats, applications, and users. Thus, they are not capable of consistently making out if a web-based transfer of data is being utilised for good reason of malicious purposes (Mendell, 2001). What’s more, the future of OS security will be impacted by the cloud computing, which will probably turn out to be more of a target as it changes into a key way of accessing and storing data. Still, malware will go on being rampant; attackers will keep searching for weak points to compromise computer systems, both physical and virtual; and workers will become more and more reliant on mobile devices for information as well as communication. Conclusion OS security is a crucial field that is progressively more gaining attention, and so the new internet protocol IPv6 embedded security can in the future offer scores of benefits to internet users. Joint utilisation of security tools and IPv6 like intrusion detection, firewalls, as well as mechanisms of authentication will attest effectiveness in protecting intellectual property in the coming days. The OS security field must advance faster to handle the security threats further in the future. The present OS have conventionally been developed bottom-up, and their goal have been to package the memory, processor, disk in addition to other peripherals, in order that the user can manage them through remote control. However, the future operating system will start with the user, and it will overlook the core hardware, and consequently, these systems will essentially be less resourceful as compared to modern machine-centered ones. Without doubt security of OS in the future will be imperative, and even though malicious attacks will increase, business organizations will espouse advanced measures to counter such attacks. Furthermore, privacy issues will increase given that use of internet is expected to increase; therefore, the number of computer systems will heighten thus increasing the privacy threats. References Gelernter, D., 2003. Future of operating systems: simplicity. [Online] Available at: http://www.computerworld.com/article/2580106/operating-systems/future-of-operating-systems--simplicity.html [Accessed 8 October 2014]. Kabachinski, J., 2010. Back to basics: understanding operating systems and network operating systems. Biomedical instrumentation & technology / Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation, vol. 44, no. 5, pp.405 - 408. Matthews, J., 2006. Operating systems review: looking back and looking forward. ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review, vol. 40, no. 1, pp.1 - 2. Mendell, R.L., 2001. The Future of Operating Systems Security. 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