Analyzing Computer Security: A Threat / Vulnerability / Countermeasure Approach

Preface

Computer technology surrounds us; from mobile phones to digital cameras, and hybrid vehicles to laser surgery, we achieve results that would be impossible without computers. On any given day you probably interact with computer-controlled or computer-assisted devices tens or hundreds of times, generally without even thinking of the computing involved. And this discussion does not even include the laptops, desktops, netbooks, and other actual computers we use, let alone the Internet and its vast oceans of data. Of course, we could do without all these things, but our lives would be different.

At the same time, as we become more accustomed to and integrated with computers, their weaknesses become our weaknesses. If you lost power, you could ...