OPERATING SYSTEM SECURITY 1

Operating System Security

Capella University

IAS5025 - Network and Operating System

Jan 17, 2019

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Abstract
The lifeline of the computer system is the operating system which is the heartbeat that keeps it

running. these Operating Systems support the functions of computing user interaction, libraries,

processes differential software types, storage, hardware resources administration, and

communication options. If there were to be Operating system vulnerabilities is very problematic

to remake it. That is why the Operating System development life cycle requires effective and

best practices of the final product that can withstand the test of time.

This paper describes the major security concepts in a modern operating system. this

paper, we will discuss the basic security issues in OS design and implementation. The paper will

look at the design issues and security concepts in Operating System by making a

recommendation and finally” the role of the modern OS in creating a network system design”

(Capella, 2019 para 21).

Keywords: Network Design, Security Concepts, Operating Systems, OS design.

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Table of Content

 Cover Page,

 Abstract.

 Table of Content.

 Introduction/ Body

 Conclusion

 References
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Introduction

Whiles the goals of Operating System which the foundation system by which a hardware

or computer devices to be controllable by the inputs of instructions and operational in given the

desired result of the outcome. By the Operating System, it administers all the applications and

programs on the hardware or computer. Since it is the heartbeat of hardware or computer all

security protections and services run in connections with its. That is why the Operating System

should be able to work well with other software, without any system vulnerabilities throughout

the development lifecycle to when the end user purchase and installed on the hardware or

computer. Security of the Operating System runs from the beginning of the development of OS

components through the secure coding and OS product testing, OS libraries, User Management,

and configurations (Stallings, 2009, p 3-7).

Operating System security happens when their OS data is secure, an attacker cannot

inject manipulated codes into the OS operations when running on hardware or computer,

connections with other applications its threats should not come from human error, malicious

applications and the hardware or computer system weakness. The way an Operating system

ensure security of all its data through its authentication of validating the end user accessing

policy to ensure the right user is authorized to access what functions or program on the hardware

or computer the ability to limit sharing, isolation services, access control services, confine

service, the also login access management, the User attributes these functions allow the

authentication and permission of legitimate users to access what, also the OS allocates unique

attributes to each user to identify the user each time by the login. There is all OS security from

the backup and restoration which is function from the OS which permit the user to be able to
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restore and backup of all information either by files or the hardware or computer system image

backup from data files, system files, folders and subfolders, application files, programs files and

user access management files. Another security of modern OS the ability to limit administrative

access control to the hardware system and data whiles continuing their duties on the computer.

There is the security service offered by the modern OS the control of the flow of information

which helps data availability (Santana, 2009, p 112- 115).

Modern Operating System by default makes no access function available for all resources

of the hardware in the designing of the OS development life cycle. The basic security risk found

in the OS is the memory management of OS assurance so that it can fend off attack that leads to

low performance which is in the design of the operating system if coding of the application

development life is properly vetted an attacker can inject a malicious code into the OS by the

reverse engineering of Operating System and its libraries of the OS (Krishna, 2003, para 16-19) .

The protection services that offers the OS ability to share resources with other different users

these services can give privileges to users through isolation, share all access or share nothing at

all, ability, access or partial use. Since the kernel administers all the properties security and

admission, permission and monitoring, restricting the flow of information which can be shared.

The memory allocation for the OS should be separated and secured only user-orientation access

should be permitted, only permitting user by the required system and side by side obligatory to

their duties (Stallings, 2009, p 14-19).

Recommendation of required OS base of security policies and design issues such as IT

administrators providing design principles for open source OS like Linux, Apache that can use

for the organization technical security needs where they can organization developers create OS

patch up and security controls for the OS weakness and OS security control defense, also allow
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for rollback OS on hardware or instead of reinstallation of OS. Also, following the DoD

framework for OS trusted the system. Some of these open source OS gives organization

administrator the freedom to do all that and they are able to share their OS security flaws with

other users and OS developers.

Operating System has played the role of help administrators to design and implement

secure network design. If we have to design secure network design without taking into

recognition the secure network design will support multiple users and computer network system

devices and technologies that will require infrastructure access to various types of generated data

or information, subsystem networks. The kind of OS use for secure network design will require

administrator that can support it in providing security control management, access control

management, network protocol management, user access control management, and information

security policy.
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References

Santana, M. (2009). Chapter 6, Eliminating the Security weakness of Linux and Unix Operating

Systems. In Vacca, J. R. (Ed.), Computer and information security handbook Boston,

MA: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.

Stallings, W. (2009). Operating System Security, in H. Bidgoli (Ed.), Handbook of information

security, volume 2. Part 3: Foundations of Information, Computer, and Network Security,

New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Capella University, 2019, Courseroom, unit 2, Operating System Security, Date retrieved

01/16/2019,https://courserooma.capella.edu/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?

course_id=_162482_1&content_id=_7268977_1&mode=reset

Krishna, A. (2003). Steps to a secure operating system. Date retrieved 01/16/2019

https://www.computerworld.com/article/2571939/security0/steps-to-a-secure-operating-

system.html