what are some early securtity measures that were used for computers when they were new to the world?

Question

like the 70s-90s

Answer 1

Good question. When PC's first became available to the public at affordable rates, Viruses were virtually unheard of. The first virus was a Batch program written in MSDOS that would delete the WIN.COM file or delete the DOS folder when it was called up by the Autoexec.bat file. These types of threats are still out there today. The last BATCH related virus was written about 3 months ago called DF_Bully. It was a small program that targeted players of the hit game Deltaforce (http://www.novalogic.com). The virus was masked as a Cheat program. It was designed to damage cheaters PC's by deleting the game from the system.

These BATCH virus threats are still undetectable by ANY antivirus program becuase Batch File viruses have an accurate CRC.

In the 70's, the only real protection we had was a password. LAter, viruses started to surface. I remember hearing about Michealangelo, the TROJAN, and Flip. These were viruses that were so powerfull in their day that F-Prot released the first line of protection against these new threats.

With the increasing technology, viruses quickly turned into Worms which crawl around the internet and local networks looking for vulernabilities inwhich to exploit. This led to the creation of Encryption. Just in time too becuase Hacking was a growing problem and this encryption was also a method of defense.

However the game of cat and mouse continued and the need for Firewalls such as Watchdog ( a popular product of the late 80's early 90's) was ever present.

Today, we face Viruses, Hackers, Spyware, Adware, Malware, Ransomeware, Trojans, Rootkits, and ofcourse Worms. The sad thing is that we use Norton and McAfee exclusively for years. Wel lthe virus writers have figured out how to undermind these two AV Powerhouses, making them the most obsolete protection packages todate. That is why all the big ISP's are including these two programs as part of their "Comprehensive" protection. Notice they called it Comprehensive but not Effective...

With the new viruses that are able to walk right past Norton and McAfee, the creation of new AV programs have emerged such as AVG, A-Squared, (UK) Antivir, and ofcourse my personal favorite (Becuase it removes viruses that pass undetected by Norton, McAfee, and Computer Associates), Avast Antivirus.

With these new AV programs which focus on viruses, trojans, and worms as a main objective, the AV programs look at spyware and adware as a second objective.

Since this is the reality, two fantastic programs were released that are an essential supplement to any AV program. Spybot Search & Destroy which caters to Spyware. And Ad-Aware SE which caters to Adware. Both released for free and have been called the best in their field.

Answer 2

Well actually during that period, the usage and the popularity of computers were much less. Only big companies had computers and so the technology was minimal and had no intelligent programs. In such an era, threats such as Viruses, worms, adware, spyware, Trojan Horses and a lot other were not even known and there were no hackers in that era.

It all started after 1990. So, possibly the security measure used that time were only password protection and physical security measures to protect the physical hardware.

BYE
Imtiyaz

Answer 3

Well at first just physical security. You had to get access to a mainframe computer. Then the idea of user accounts allowed for the first password protection. a hash of the password was kept in a file that was used to compare with a hash of the current login attempt.
Back when computers were inter-networked together in what is now the Internet, the issue was not how to secure information but how to share information. Circuit or node failures were more of a concern then preventing access. As a matter of fact the whole concept was free access to information between educational institutions and government communities.

--:)mcd(:--

Answer 4

Yeah, but do they scare you as much as HAL? See how many teenagers you can find who realize that Roy Rogers was a person. I've run into several who didn't know that Walt Disney was a person. Dave and Mercury, I have had my discouraging days, too. I try to keep reminding myself that it's a different person every time. Also, that some of us might be the only dose of reality they will get. Consider it a mission: front line soldiers in the war on ignorance. It may get bloody, but we will NEVER SURRENDER! Edit: ***...The Walrus and the Carpenter Were walking close at hand; They wept like anything to see Such quantities of sand: “If this were only cleared away,” They said, “it would be grand!” “If seven maids with seven mops Swept it for half a year. Do you suppose,” the Walrus said, “That they could get it clear?” “I doubt it,” said the Carpenter, And shed a bitter tear....*** (Lewis Carroll)

Answer 5

early on they were so complicated that in itself was a security measure. Next they were only standalone machines and could only be accessed from inside a locked room. Next with terminals and admins being able to login from the terminals passwords were used but found not to be that secure as the admins would not generaly change the default passwords to very powerful accounts (why, I don't know). Encryption and network authentication began to be used and then we get to where we are now.

Answer 6

There were not any computers in the 70's - perhaps some early ones at NASA that took up a whole room. Networking as we know it was not even here yet.

The first personal pc's started to appear in the 80's - What security? The most there was - the password.

Answer 7

Sad to say.. but not a whole lot in the public division. When the Internet first started up it was for the most part military - they naturally had security measures.

Back then a good password was the most common, lol.

Answer 8

I've seen some with locks that kept you from powering up the machine. There were also simple passwork tools. Mainly, especially in earlier times, tight lips were the best means of security. If someone didn't know where the door was, then they couldn't get in.

Answer 9

I'm not sure what you mean by "security". For mainframes where I worked there were two forms of security, security of access and security of data protection.

(1) Access security: primitive! Two forms:
a. Limited to 8-character, case-insensitive passwords, on both user-level and administrator-level userids.
b. Locked doors on computer room.

(2) Data protection (administrator-managed backups from disk to off-site-stored magnetic tapes):
a. Full system backup once per week
b. "Incremental" backups nightly (data that had changed during the day)

(3) Data protection (administrator-managed backups from tapes to on-site "mirror" disks once per month)

(4) Data protection at user level: since these were "virtual" machines, each user had segments of "virtual" disk space. Users were "encouraged" but not forced to backup data from a primary virtual disk to a secondary virtual disk...

That's yer security...

Answer 10

they didnt need any as the computers didnt use the internet :) and the ones that did well i dno but they were mainly mainframes and not many were hacked thats y alot of companys still use windows 3.1