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Essential Operating System Protection Mechanisms – Part VI

Robert Davis — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 02:18:06 +0000

Sustaining information integrity requires operating system protection

Usually, IT network environments orchestrate direction and control through an operating system installed to coordinate processes; including application software. In other words, an operating system performs most generally accepted management functions for IT processes.

Without an operating system certain functions, such as multiprogramming, simply would not be an available processing option, and many functions like I/O completion testing would have to be performed directly by a programmer. Therefore, operating systems are the primary catalyst sustaining efficient and effective information integrity. If this viewpoint is adopted throughout the entity, IT owners should ensure adequate protection mechanisms are installed with employed operating systems.

Sources:

Davis, Robert E. IT Auditing: Assuring Information Assets Protection. Mission Viejo, CA: Pleier Corporation, 2008. CD-ROM.

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). rev. ed. New York, NY: Random House. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/linkage editor (accessed: August 30, 2008).

Lyon, Lockwood and Kenniston W. Lord. CDP Review Manual: Covering the ICCP, CDP, CSP, and CCP Examinations, 5th ed. New York, NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1991. 130-2

Minasi, Mark. Complete PC Upgrade and Maintenance Guide, 8th ed. San Francisco, CA: SYBEX, 1997. 263-4

Watne, Donald A. and Peter B. B. Turney. Auditing EDP Systems. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1984. 239

Silbershatz, Abraham and Peter B. Galvin. Operating System Concepts, 4th ed. Gainesville, FL: Addison-Wesley, 1995. 49-50

“View Part I of the Essential Operating System Protection Mechanisms series here”

Post Note: “Essential Operating System Protection Mechanisms – Part VI” was originally published through Suite101.com under the title “Essential Operating System Protection Mechanisms”

Essential Operating System Protection Mechanisms – Part V

Robert Davis — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 03:31:08 +0000

Technically, the user program subroutine integration process is known as linkage editing. Linkage editing poses two risks: the unauthorized use of subroutines and the unauthorized suppression of subroutines that should accept utilization. In the first case, an application program might utilize a job control (script) statement requesting the services of an unauthorized subroutine that performs an illegal task. In the second case, the program might use a script statement that suppresses the services of a required subroutine. Consequently, policies and procedures should be implemented to ensure:

error messages are displayed or other action taken when reference is made to unauthorized subroutines, or when external references are unsolved
the operating system maintains a log of program usage
the linkage editor of the operating system maintains a processing history of each program, including control statements utilized

Sources:

Davis, Robert E. IT Auditing: Assuring Information Assets Protection. Mission Viejo, CA: Pleier Corporation, 2008. CD-ROM.

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). rev. ed. New York, NY: Random House. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/linkage editor (accessed: August 30, 2008).

Lyon, Lockwood and Kenniston W. Lord. CDP Review Manual: Covering the ICCP, CDP, CSP, and CCP Examinations, 5th ed. New York, NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1991. 130-2

Minasi, Mark. Complete PC Upgrade and Maintenance Guide, 8th ed. San Francisco, CA: SYBEX, 1997. 263-4

Watne, Donald A. and Peter B. B. Turney. Auditing EDP Systems. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1984. 239

Silbershatz, Abraham and Peter B. Galvin. Operating System Concepts, 4th ed. Gainesville, FL: Addison-Wesley, 1995. 49-50

“View Part I of the Essential Operating System Protection Mechanisms series here”

Post Note: “Essential Operating System Protection Mechanisms – Part V” was originally published through Suite101.com under the title “Essential Operating System Protection Mechanisms”

Essential Operating System Protection Mechanisms – Part IV

Robert Davis — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 00:44:59 +0000

Preventing infinite program loops

Processor protection deters infinite program loops that could affect availability. Inserting a timer prevents programs from being stuck in infinite loops, and never returning control to the operating system. The operating system timer can be fixed or variable. However, the system parameter for the timer should be set at a generally accepted practice range with instructions to interrupt the operating system timer considered a privileged authorization for incident prevention.

Reducing the risk of IT program manipulation

Lastly, user program protection dictates user access to shared user resources. Rather than include all necessary instructions in an application program, many programs simply reference other programs, or subroutines, that may be available in the program library. When a program makes a reference to subroutine, it is the operating system that calls the subroutine in from the library and makes it available to the requesting program.

Sources:

Davis, Robert E. IT Auditing: Assuring Information Assets Protection. Mission Viejo, CA: Pleier Corporation, 2008. CD-ROM.

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). rev. ed. New York, NY: Random House. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/linkage editor (accessed: August 30, 2008).

Lyon, Lockwood and Kenniston W. Lord. CDP Review Manual: Covering the ICCP, CDP, CSP, and CCP Examinations, 5th ed. New York, NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1991. 130-2

Minasi, Mark. Complete PC Upgrade and Maintenance Guide, 8th ed. San Francisco, CA: SYBEX, 1997. 263-4

Watne, Donald A. and Peter B. B. Turney. Auditing EDP Systems. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1984. 239

Silbershatz, Abraham and Peter B. Galvin. Operating System Concepts, 4th ed. Gainesville, FL: Addison-Wesley, 1995. 49-50

“View Part I of the Essential Operating System Protection Mechanisms series here”

Post Note: “Essential Operating System Protection Mechanisms – Part IV” was originally published through Suite101.com under the title “Essential Operating System Protection Mechanisms”

Essential Operating System Protection Mechanisms – Part III

Robert Davis — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 01:18:01 +0000

Intel Central Processing Unit (CPU)

A potential consequence for a breach in memory protection is a halt in all current processing. Therefore, the operating system should monitor the partitions to ensure that no program coding or data are moved into the wrong partition to prevent information corruption and unauthorized manipulation. Furthermore, operating systems should check to ensure data read into devices from other media are of the correct length. The operating system’s data length check prevents errors, such as blocks of records being too long for the memory buffer storage area.

Controlling privileged instructions

I/O allocation and control dynamically matches and assigns channels and devices with the processes’ particular requirements, monitors the status, and controls operations. Where online features are part of the IT configuration, communication with a terminal control unit (TCU) or front-end processor (FEP) are typically included in operating system duties. I/O protection prevents users from accessing privileged instructions.

Sources:

Davis, Robert E. IT Auditing: Assuring Information Assets Protection. Mission Viejo, CA: Pleier Corporation, 2008. CD-ROM.

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). rev. ed. New York, NY: Random House. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/linkage editor (accessed: August 30, 2008).

Lyon, Lockwood and Kenniston W. Lord. CDP Review Manual: Covering the ICCP, CDP, CSP, and CCP Examinations, 5th ed. New York, NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1991. 130-2

Minasi, Mark. Complete PC Upgrade and Maintenance Guide, 8th ed. San Francisco, CA: SYBEX, 1997. 263-4

Watne, Donald A. and Peter B. B. Turney. Auditing EDP Systems. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1984. 239

Silbershatz, Abraham and Peter B. Galvin. Operating System Concepts, 4th ed. Gainesville, FL: Addison-Wesley, 1995. 49-50

“View Part I of the Essential Operating System Protection Mechanisms series here”

Post Note: “Essential Operating System Protection Mechanisms – Part III” was originally published through Suite101.com under the title “Essential Operating System Protection Mechanisms”

Essential Operating System Protection Mechanisms – Part II

Robert Davis — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 00:40:27 +0000

Deployable operating system protection mechanisms

In most instances, the purpose of operating system protection mechanisms are to prevent programs from interfering with each other during processing and to ensure there are no errors in referencing of subroutines in the program library; as well as ensure no unauthorized changes are made to authorized instructions.

Regarding entity software controls, all of the functions utilizing the Central Processing Unit (CPU) and associated storage as well as connected input and output devices are potential candidates for operating system defense strategies. Tactically, four primary operating system protection mechanisms are deployable: memory, I/O, processor, and user program controls.

Protecting against unauthorized modification

Memory protection restricts unauthorized modification to privileged programs. The operating system can partition associated memory into segments. Under this condition, each application program or program set will be assigned a particular memory partition. This allows several programs to process simultaneously in a multiprogramming environment, without interfering with each other.

Sources:

Davis, Robert E. IT Auditing: Assuring Information Assets Protection. Mission Viejo, CA: Pleier Corporation, 2008. CD-ROM.

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). rev. ed. New York, NY: Random House. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/linkage editor(accessed: August 30, 2008).

Lyon, Lockwood and Kenniston W. Lord. CDP Review Manual: Covering the ICCP, CDP, CSP, and CCP Examinations, 5th ed. New York, NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1991. 130-2

Minasi, Mark. Complete PC Upgrade and Maintenance Guide, 8th ed. San Francisco, CA: SYBEX, 1997. 263-4

Watne, Donald A. and Peter B. B. Turney. Auditing EDP Systems. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1984. 239

Silbershatz, Abraham and Peter B. Galvin. Operating System Concepts, 4th ed. Gainesville, FL: Addison-Wesley, 1995. 49-50

“View Part I of the Essential Operating System Protection Mechanisms series here”

Post Note: “Essential Operating System Protection Mechanisms – Part II” was originally published through Suite101.com under the title “Essential Operating System Protection Mechanisms”

Essential Operating System Protection Mechanisms – Part I

Robert Davis — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 12:39:45 +0000

Third Generation iPod Nano With Embedded Operating System 1.1.3

From mainframe computers to industrial robots to cellular phones, a variety of operating systems are available for deployment. Nevertheless, reflective of current capabilities, an IT operating system is software that controls the execution of electronically encoded instructions and may provide scheduling, debugging, input/output (I/O) control, accounting, compilation, storage assignment, job management, as well as other related services. Of these other related services, operating system protection mechanisms are crucial to ensuring information integrity.

Operating system processor functionality

Operating system functionality is determined by the lead software manufacture. However, operating systems consist of a kernel and at least one processor; with each operating system processor having specific functions that are executed based on user and/or program interface syntax. Whereby, modern operating system processors commonly perform defined process management, memory management, device management, storage management, as well as application-interface and/or user-interface related tasks.

Sources:

Davis, Robert E. IT Auditing: Assuring Information Assets Protection. Mission Viejo, CA: Pleier Corporation, 2008. CD-ROM.

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). rev. ed. New York, NY: Random House. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/linkage editor(accessed: August 30, 2008).

Lyon, Lockwood and Kenniston W. Lord. CDP Review Manual: Covering the ICCP, CDP, CSP, and CCP Examinations, 5th ed. New York, NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1991. 130-2

Minasi, Mark. Complete PC Upgrade and Maintenance Guide, 8th ed. San Francisco, CA: SYBEX, 1997. 263-4

Watne, Donald A. and Peter B. B. Turney. Auditing EDP Systems. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1984. 239

Silbershatz, Abraham and Peter B. Galvin. Operating System Concepts, 4th ed. Gainesville, FL: Addison-Wesley, 1995. 49-50

Post Note: “Essential Operating System Protection Mechanisms – Part I” was originally published through Suite101.com under the title “Essential Operating System Protection Mechanisms”

Managing the IT Configuration – Part VIII

Robert Davis — Tue, 01 May 2012 22:24:56 +0000

An IT maintenance request requires analysis of all incidents and problems generated in the entity’s production environment. However, assigned IT service support personnel should make problem evaluation their final step prior to correction. Sequentially, within the evaluation process, an entity’s major problem management tasks should include: resolving problem causes, investigating and diagnosing the root cause of the problem, identifying and recording known circumstances, assessing known circumstances, recording the known circumstances’ resolution and requesting appropriate changes.

IT service support management has a proactive role in identifying application or infrastructure weaknesses and ‘areas of concern’ within the entity’s deployed IT architecture. Once adverse trends are recognized, service problems should be highlighted and corrective action initiated. For instance, a known circumstance can be forwarded to service support change management personnel or used for employee education and training.

“View Part I of the Managing the IT Configuration series here“

Managing the IT Configuration – Part VII

Robert Davis — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 22:19:29 +0000

An IT service problem can be viewed as a demarcated and identified condition extracted from a single incident or multiple incidents exhibiting common symptoms. Initially, the IT service problem is an unknown circumstance awaiting identification and attribution. Through successful problem root cause analysis, the unknown circumstance converts to a known circumstance representing an identified condition where a CI is confirmed as the resource defect. Therefore, a primary problem management process objective should be ensuring IT services stability by identifying and removing known circumstances negatively affecting deployed IT. When cascaded, the primary goals of the Problem Management process are to minimize the adverse impact of known circumstances affecting IT service delivery and to prevent recurring incidents related to known circumstances that can affect IT service delivery. Furthermore, the reactive aspect of these goals is to quickly solve problems in response to one or more incidents; whereas, the proactive aspect of these goals is to reduce the overall number of incidents.

“View Part I of the Managing the IT Configuration series here“

Managing the IT Configuration – Part VI

Robert Davis — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 14:51:19 +0000

Cascading from the primary release management objective, the primary release management goal should be to ensure approved and accredited components are installed malfunction-resistant and on schedule. Consequently, the high level activities associated with this process should encompass: release planning, CI distribution and implementation into production, as well as definitive software library (DSL) and definitive hardware store (DHS) management.

Commonly, change tracking and change oversight practices are necessary but not sufficient to achieve acceptable CI performance improvements. Specifically, there are a variety of potential IT service threats that can convert to intentional or unintentional incidents requiring adequate IT service support. If restoring service normalcy as swiftly as possible and minimizing adverse impacts on entity operations are the primary incident management process goals, then IT support personnel achievement of expected performance levels ensures that the highest possible service quality and availability levels are maintained.

“View Part I of the Managing the IT Configuration series here“

Managing the IT Configuration – Part V

Robert Davis — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 20:41:00 +0000

Once change tests prove satisfactory functionality, most IT CIs should be moved to a secure staging area. Subsequently, a release request should be submitted to the appropriate individual for production implementation. Upon notification of a successfully released change, documentation updates should be delivered to the individual directly responsible for the CMDB. Moreover, a change review should be performed to assess change process performance and development adequacy.

Within the change management process, release management is the practice of software development, installation as well as support for software control and distribution. The primary release management objective should be to ensure that only authorized and correct versions of software are made available for operational production usage.

“View Part I of the Managing the IT Configuration series here“