Information Assurance

12.1. Introduction

The operating system (OS) constitutes a key building block in virtually all computer-based systems. Consequently, the ability of a computing system to provide the desired services to its users depends on the ability of the OS to correctly support the applications running on the computing system, even in the presence of operational perturbations. The degree to which an OS can handle the perturbations and provide sustained correct operations is termed as the “OS robustness” [1, 2]. Such perturbations include malfunctioning hardware, software bugs, invalid inputs from external components, and application-level stress/loading. OSs are typically highly complex functional entities with countless environment interaction scenarios. ...