Operating System Exposures and Controls
Listed here are five scenarios. For each scenario, discuss the potential consequences and give
a prevention technique.
a.
The systems operator opened a bag of burned microwave popcorn directly under a
smoke detector in the computing room where two mainframes, three highspeed printers, and
approximately 40 tapes are housed. The extremely sensitive smoke detector triggered the
sprinkler system. Three minutes passed before the sprinklers could be turned off.
b.
A system programmer intentionally placed an error into a program that causes the
operating system to fail and dump certain confidential information to disks and printers.
c.
Jane's employer told her she would be laid offin 3 weeks. After 2 weeks, Jane realized
that finding another secretarial job was going to be very tough. She became bitter. Her son told
her about a virus that had infected his school's computers and that one of his disks had been
infected. Jane took the infected disk to work and copied it onto the network server, which is
connected to the companys mainframe. One month later, the company realized that some data
and application programs had been destroyed.
d.
Robert discovered a new sensitivity analysis publicdomain program on the Internet. He
downloaded the software to his microcomputer at home, then
took the application to work and placed it onto his networked personal computer. The program
had a virus on it that eventually spread to the company's mainframe.
e.
Murray, a trusted employee and a systems engineer, had access to both the computer
access control list and user passwords. The firm's competitor recently hired him for twice his
salary. After leaving, Murray continued to browse through his old employer's data, such as price
lists, customer lists, bids on jobs, and so on. He passed this information on to his new employer.
Encryption
The coded message that follows is an encrypted message from Brutus to the Roman Senate. It
was produced using the Caesar cipher method, in which each letter is shifted by a fixed number
of places (determined by the key value).
OHWV GR MXOLXV RQ PRQGDB PDUFK 48 GUHVV: WRJD FDVXDO (EBRG)
Required:
Determine the key used to produce the coded message and decode it.
Database Authorization Table
The following information is stored in two relational database files:
Employee Master File
Social Security number
Name
Address
Date hired
Hourly wage rate
Marital status
Number of exemptions
Weekly Payroll File
Social Security number
Hours worked
Deductions Bonuses
Required:
a. Bogey works in personnel and Bacall works in payroll. Prepare a database authorization table
that you think is appropriate for Bogey and Bacall for these two files.
b. Discuss any potential exposure if the right prevention devices are not in place or if Bogey and
Bacall collude.