Microsoft Security Flaw

Security

When asked the question which OS is more secure many people don’t really know the answer. All operating systems have their flaws such as the major security flaw that was found in the Mac OS X operating system. The security flaw causes many applications to skip a critical verification check when working with websites that utilize Transport Layer Security (TLS), and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). This flaw would allow for a man in the middle attack while on a public or unsecured hotspot. (Bob Violino, 2014). Microsoft had a huge security flaw that affected versions of Internet Explorer from version 6 to 11. The flaw would allow the attacker to execute arbitrary code in the context of the current user within Internet Explorer. (Smith,

This was their attempt to copy a feature that Macintosh computer have that requires users to input a password whenever them make a change to the system. This usually was one of the first features most users turned off, which rendered the feature useless. Another addition to Windows was Windows Defender which was designed to work alongside the antivirus software the user installs. It helps manage scheduling scans, signature data, and performing operations such as quarantine and data removal.

Windows 7 introduced a few new features, one of the most well-known being the Action Center. This all-in-one utility that was upgrades from the security center and it help to keep track of all of the possible threats to your OS. It warns the user of such errors as antivirus being out of date or turned off is off, and it provides warning for some of the other maintenance duties to include windows updates, backup, and troubleshooting. The built in windows firewall also received a big upgrade, making it easier to user more immersive ever

First question is, what is open source? Simply puts the programming code for the OS is able to be viewed by the general public. What this means is that there is an entire community of people working to solve problems that may arise. With this being the case problems (mainly security flaws) can be fixed rather quickly, rather than having to wait on a closed-source company to hopefully look over the issue and offer some kind of a fix.

With all the different Linux distributions out it makes writing malware very difficult. If one were to create a computer virus or worm and actually get it onto a Linux system and past the root account, user account, and the signed repositories, would it actually run? Well, if it was written for different versions of Linux then what is installed on the computer then it would not run.

Root was mentioned more then once. Root simple put is the superuser account in UNIX. In both the Mac OS and Linux operating systems, the administrator account can make changes to their system such as installing programs and changing documents with the use of the administrator password, but are unable modify system files. This is one feature makes Mac and Linux systems more secure and helps prevent the user from destroying their own system. In order to make any major changes to the system the user would need to know the root password, but in order to user the root account it has to be unlocked by the administrator’s password.