LECTURE 1: INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTER SECURITY

1. Introduction
This lecture provides fundamental concepts in the field of cryptography and cyber security.
Cryptography is at the core of logical security afforded to computer security. Cybersecurity is
any security measure afforded to computer systems within a network environment. From a
logical security viewpoint, cryptographic protocols are essential in achieving network security.
Cryptographic algorithms and protocols are grouped into four main areas which include;
 Symmetric encryption: Used to conceal the contents of blocks or streams of data of any
size, including messages, files, encryption keys, and passwords.
 Asymmetric encryption: Used to conceal small blocks of data, such as encryption keys
and hash function values, which are used in digital signatures.
 Data integrity algorithms: Used to protect blocks of data, such as messages, from
alteration.
 Authentication protocols: These are schemes based on the use of cryptographic
algorithms designed to authenticate the identity of entities.
The field of network and Internet security consists of measures to deter, prevent, detect, and
correct security violations that involve the transmission of information. That is a broad statement
that covers a host of possibilities.

Examples of Scenarios
1. A network manager, D, transmits a message to a computer, E, under its management.
The message instructs computer E to update an authorization file to include the identities
of a number of new users who are to be given access to that computer. User F intercepts
the message, alters its contents to add or delete entries, and then forwards the message
to computer E, which accepts the message as coming from manager D and updates its
authorization file accordingly.
2. Rather than intercept a message, user F constructs its own message with the desired
entries and transmits that message to computer E as if it had come from manager D.
Computer E accepts the message as coming from manager D and updates its
authorization file accordingly.
3. An employee is fired without warning. The personnel manager sends a message to a
server system to invalidate the employee’s account. When the invalidation is
accomplished, the server is to post a notice to the employee’s file as confirmation of the
action. The employee is able to intercept the message and delay it long enough to make
final access to the server to retrieve sensitive information. The message is then
forwarded, the action taken, and the confirmation posted. The employee’s action may go
unnoticed for some considerable time.
These and many more scenarios paint a grim picture of the need for network security in
enterprise systems. This lecture begins by discussing basic concepts applied to computer
security.

2. Definition of Computer Security

According to NIST, Computer security is the protection afforded to an automated information
system in order to attain the applicable objectives of preserving the integrity, availability, and
confidentiality of information system resources (including hardware, software, firmware,
information/ data, and telecommunications).
This definition introduces three key objectives that are at the heart of computer security:
 Confidentiality: This term covers two related concepts:
Data confidentiality: Assures that private or confidential information is not made available or
disclosed to unauthorized individuals.
Privacy: Assures that individuals control or influence what information related to them may be
collected and stored and by whom and to whom that information may be disclosed.
 Integrity: This term covers two related concepts:
Data integrity: Assures that information and programs are changed only in a specified and
authorized manner.
System integrity: Assures that a system performs its intended function in an unimpaired
manner, free from deliberate or inadvertent unauthorized manipulation of the system.
 Availability: Assures that systems work promptly and service is not denied to authorized
users
Confidentiality: Preserving authorized restrictions on information access and disclosure,
including means for protecting personal privacy and proprietary information. A loss of
confidentiality is the unauthorized disclosure of information.
Integrity: Guarding against improper information modification or destruction, including
ensuring information nonrepudiation and authenticity. A loss of integrity is the unauthorized
modification or destruction of information.
Availability: Ensuring timely and reliable access to and use of information. A loss of availability
is the disruption of access to or use of information or an information system.
3. The OSI Security Architecture
To assess effectively the security needs of an organization and to evaluate and choose various
security products and policies, the manager responsible for security needs some systematic way
of defining the requirements for security and characterizing the approaches to satisfying those
requirements. This is difficult enough in a centralized data processing environment; with the use
of local and wide area networks, the problems are compounded.
The OSI security architecture is useful to managers as a way of organizing the task of providing
security. Furthermore, because this architecture was developed as an international standard,
computer and communications vendors have developed security features for their products and
services that relate to this structured definition of services and mechanisms. For our purposes, the
OSI security architecture provides a useful, if abstract, overview of many of the concepts that
this book deals with. The OSI security architecture focuses on security attacks, mechanisms, and
services. These can be defined briefly as
 Security attack: Any action that compromises the security of information owned by an
organization.
 Security mechanism: A process (or a device incorporating such a process) that is
designed to detect, prevent, or recover from a security attack.
 Security service: A processing or communication service that enhances the security of
the data processing systems and the information transfers of an organization. The services
are intended to counter security attacks, and they make use of one or more security
mechanisms to provide the service.
The following section is a discussion of these three elements of OSI security architecture.
SECURITY ATTACK
A useful means of classifying security attacks used both in X.800 and RFC 2828, is in terms of
passive attacks and active attacks. A passive attack attempts to learn or make use of
information from the system but does not affect system resources. An active attack attempts to
alter system resources or affect their operation.

a) Passive Attack
Passive attacks are in the nature of eavesdropping on, or monitoring, transmissions. The goal of
the opponent is to obtain information that is being transmitted. Two types of passive attacks are
the release of message content and traffic analysis.
The release of message contents is easily understood. A telephone conversation, an electronic
mail message, and a transferred file may contain sensitive or confidential information. We would
like to prevent an opponent from learning the contents of these transmissions.
A second type of passive attack, traffic analysis, is subtler. Suppose that we had a way of
masking the contents of messages or other information traffic so that opponents, even if they
captured the message, could not extract the information from the message. The common
technique for masking contents is encryption. If we had encryption protection in place, an
opponent might still be able to observe the pattern of these messages. The opponent could
determine the location and identity of communicating hosts and could observe the frequency and
length of messages being exchanged. This information might be useful in guessing the nature of
the communication that was taking place.
Passive attacks are very difficult to detect because they do not involve any alteration of the data.
Typically, the message traffic is sent and received in an apparently normal fashion, and neither
the sender nor receiver is aware that a third party has read the messages or observed the traffic
pattern. However, it is feasible to prevent the success of these attacks, usually by means of
encryption. Thus, the emphasis in dealing with passive attacks is on prevention rather than
detection.
b) Active Attack
Active attacks involve some modification of the data stream or the creation of a false stream and
can be subdivided into four categories: masquerade, replay, modification of messages, and denial
of service.
A masquerade takes place when one entity pretends to be a different entity. A masquerade
attack usually includes one of the other forms of active attack. For example, authentication
sequences can be captured and replayed after a valid authentication sequence has taken place,
thus enabling an authorized entity with few privileges to obtain extra privileges by impersonating
an entity that has those privileges.
Replay involves the passive capture of a data unit and its subsequent retransmission to produce
an unauthorized effect.
Modification of messages simply means that some portion of a legitimate message is altered, or
that messages are delayed or reordered, to produce an unauthorized effect. For example, a
message meaning “Allow John Smith to read confidential file accounts” is modified to mean
“Allow Fred Brown to read confidential file accounts.”
The denial of service prevents or inhibits the normal use or management of communications
facilities. This attack may have a specific target; for example, an entity may suppress all
messages directed to a particular destination. Another form of service denial is the disruption of
an entire network, either by disabling the network or by overloading it with messages so as to
degrade performance.
On the other hand, it is quite difficult to prevent active attacks absolutely because of the wide
variety of potential physical, software, and network vulnerabilities. Instead, the goal is to detect
active attacks and to recover from any disruption or delays caused by them. If the detection has a
deterrent effect, it may also contribute to prevention.
SECURITY SERVICES
X.800 defines a security service as a service that is provided by a protocol layer of
communicating open systems and that ensures adequate security of the systems or of data
transfers. Perhaps a clearer definition is found in RFC 2828, which provides the following
definition: a processing or communication service that is provided by a system to give a specific
kind of protection to system resources; security services implement security policies and are
implemented by security mechanisms.
X.800 divides these services into five categories and fourteen specific services.
Table 1: Security Services
SECURITY MECHANISM
The mechanisms are divided into those that are implemented in a specific protocol layer, such as
TCP or an application-layer protocol, and those that are not specific to any particular protocol
layer or security service. These mechanisms will be covered in the appropriate places in the
book.
Table 2: Security Mechanism X.800

A MODEL FOR NETWORK SECURITY

A message is to be transferred from one party to another across some sort of Internet service. The
two parties, who are the principals in this transaction, must cooperate for the exchange to take
place. A logical information channel is established by defining a route through the Internet from
source to destination and by the cooperative use of communication protocols (e.g., TCP/IP) by
the two principals. Security aspects come into play when it is necessary or desirable to protect
the information transmission from an opponent who may present a threat to confidentiality,
authenticity, and so on.

Figure 1: A Model for Network Security

Summary
The concept of network security closely related to cryptography. In this lecture foundational
concepts in security have been discussed. The definition of computer security and the objectives
of security as identified in the definition. The OSI security architecture together with its elements
of security attacks, services and mechanisms. The lecture finished by looking at the model for
network security.
Self test questions
a) What is the OSI security architecture?
b) What is the difference between passive and active security threats?
c) List and briefly define categories of passive and active security attacks.
d) List and briefly define categories of security services.
e) List and briefly define categories of security mechanisms