How did Computer Security Come about?

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How did Computer Security Come about?
Many readers may recall the movie "Wargames", starring Matthew Broderick in his portrayal of a high school student that breaks into the United States Department of Defense (DOD) supercomputer and inadvertently causes a nuclear war threat. In this movie, Broderick uses his modem to dial into the DOD computer (called WOPR) and plays games with the articially intelligent software controlling all of the nuclear missile silos. The movie was released during the "cold war" between the former Soviet Union and the United States, and was considered a success in its theatrical release in 1983.

The popularity of the movie inspired many individuals and groups to begin implementing some of the methods that the young protagonist used to crack restricted systems, including what is known as war dialing . a method of searching phone numbers for analog modem connections in an dened area code and phone prex combination.

More than 10 years later, after a four-year, multi-jurisdictional pursuit involving the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the aid of computer professionals across the country, infamous computer cracker Kevin Mitnick was arrested and charged with 25 counts of computer and access device fraud that resulted in an estimated US$80 Million in losses of intellectual property and source code from Nokia, NEC, Sun Microsystems, Novell, Fujitsu, and Motorola. At the time, the FBI considered it the largest single computer-related criminal offense in U.S. history. He was convicted and sentenced to a combined 68 months in prison for his crimes, of which he served 60 months before his parole on January 21, 2000. He has been further barred from using computers or doing any computer-related consulting until 2003. Investigators say that Mitnick was an expert in social engineering . using human beings to gain access to passwords and systems using falsied credentials.

the way they handle information transmission and disclosure. The popularity of the Internet was one of the most important developments that prompted an intensied effort in data security.
An ever-growing number of people are using their personal computers to gain access to the resources that the Internet has to offer. From research and information retrieval to electronic mail and commerce transaction, the Internet has been regarded as one of the most important developments of the 20th century.

The Internet and its earlier protocols, however, were developed as a trust-based system. That is, the Internet Protocol was not designed to be secure in itself. There are no approved security standards built into the TCP/IP communications stack, leaving it open to potentially malicious users and processes across the network. Modern developments have made Internet communication more secure, but there are still several incidents that gain national attention and alert us to the fact that nothing is completely safe.

Information security has evolved over the years due to the increasing reliance on public networks to disclose personal, nancial, and other restricted information. There are numerous instances such as the Mitnick and the Vladamir Levin case that prompted organizations across all industries to rethink


the way they handle information transmission and disclosure. The popularity of the Internet was one of the most important developments that prompted an intensied effort in data security.
An ever-growing number of people are using their personal computers to gain access to the resources that the Internet has to offer. From research and information retrieval to electronic mail and commerce transaction, the Internet has been regarded as one of the most important developments of the 20th century.
The Internet and its earlier protocols, however, were developed as a trust-based system. That is, the Internet Protocol was not designed to be secure in itself. There are no approved security standards built into the TCP/IP communications stack, leaving it open to potentially malicious users and processes across the network. Modern developments have made Internet communication more secure, but there are still several incidents that gain national attention and alert us to the fact that nothing is completely safe.

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