History of Computer Security

The history of computer security dated back to the time following the development of computer mainframe. But today, the trend and in fact, the shape has changed completely and the next question is "how did we get to where we are today".

How did we get to where we are today?

Computer or Information Technology has revolutionised the way we exchange information today, not even with the advent of internet and the World Wide Web. It is therefore important that we look at how it all started no matter how brief it may be.

The history of computer security could be said to have started with the development of computer mainframe. The need to protect information from the enemy forces was first heard of around 1930s and later during the 2nd World War.

The conscious step at developing computer security really happened back in the 60s when mainframe computer was in use. Then it was a scarce resource. This limited resource makes their use to be properly accounted for.

With the introduction of time sharing to the old computer mainframe, accounting for the usage was said to pose a lot more problem. The behaviour of users then led to the introduction of password in the early 60s.

Computer security then was basically looked at from the national level as government was the major user of computer. Because of this, real computer security and investigation, used to be the sole concern of the Department of Defence (US) in the 60s hence, general concern was not pronounced. The development in the United States of America of ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) of the world’s first operational packet switching network for sharing information between Computer Research Centres gave a big boost to the development of information security. This is because there were some weaknesses that were identified from this project like no safety procedures for dial-up connections to ARPANET and also no proper user identification and authorization which are all key to good information security. These formed the bases for further development.

1970s saw a dramatic change in the history of computer security with the introduction of microcomputers. This expanded the computing capabilities and by extension, security threats.

1990s saw a real change in the history of computer security with the discovery of the internet as a global network of computers. This resulted to a big boost to information sharing. With the commercial adoption of the World Wide Web for commerce and internet connectivity, computer security has since then become a general concern which means that adequate security must be put in place in order to safeguard the security of information asset either on the home computer or your laptop/desktop within the organisation.

ENABLING LAWS

There was no major law with respect to computer security. The first significant step towards institutionalising information security started with the Rand Report R-609 which looked into the study of computer security.

Not until 1986 when the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act was enacted. There was no dramatic change to fraud and investigation until 1990s when Robert T. Morris was first tried under the Act. He was found guilty in February 1990 in U.S District Court in Syracuse, NY and in May 1990, he was sentenced.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of computer security breaches world wide have happened while only a fraction of these have been recorded, meaning countless information security incidents go unrecorded.

Examples of recorded cases of security incidents:

a) In the early hours of Saturday, August 17, 1996, a computer system at the U.S Department of Justice was attacked. The attackers compromised the server’s security and modified its home page

b) On September 18, 1996, a group of Swedish hackers broke into the Central Intelligence Agency’s website

c) There is countless number of virus attacks on the World Wide Web and several computers affected.

THE FUTURE OF INFORMATION SECURITY

The future of information security will continue to be influenced to a large extent by the level of technological advancement coupled with the seriousness/determination and the willingness of governments/ institutions to collaborate together to making the world a better place by making sure that offenders are disciplined. What the history of computer security will look like when compared with the periods between 1930s and 1960s is better imagined with what the technology impact on computer security would look like in another thirty years to come.