What is Computer Security

In this blog, We are going to discuss 

1. What is computer security in a basic sense
2. What are Assets
3. What are the goal of computer security
4. What are Threats

Welcome back to another blog, in this blog i am going answer to basic questions related to Computer Security.

What is Computer Security?
Before answering this question, lets discuss about computers
We encounter computers daily in countless situations where it is involved in moving money, controlling planes, radio, communication, monitoring health, Heating buildings, locking doors, playing music, regulate heart, tally votes, Health, finance,etc.
Most of the time computers work well as they should but occasionally it does something horrible, weird that causes havoc everywhere because of an attack.

Therefore Computer Security plays an very important role by not letting attackers compromise computers in any possible way.
Computer Security is the protection of items that we value called Assets of computer system. There are many types of assets involved here, example hardware assets, software assets, data assets.
Hardware like Computer device ( disk, memory ), Networking gears,etc. are valuable assets, but hardware without software is pretty useless and hence software is also a valuable asset. Now Taking about data asset, the thing that make it unique, valuable is that it is not commercially available, nor it could be replaceable. That is your content like photos, videos, mails, calendar, meeting schedule, documents, secrets, etc... are valuable assets too.

Value of Assets

After Identifying what are Assets to protect, we need to understand the value of Assets because we make value based decisions frequently for example 
When You go to swim, you may forget your towel, clothes but you will never leave your wallet, phone, money alone on beach because the difference relates to its value of assets.

The Goal of Computer Security

The Goal of Computer Security is to protect valuable assets. To study different ways of protection, let us discuss the frameworks that are made to see how assets may get harmed, damaged, attacked,etc.

Vulnerability and Threat are two major terms here. Vulnerability is the weakness in system design, procedure, loophole, implementation,etc. which causes harm.

Threat is the set of circumstances that has the potential to cause harm.

From the above figure, we can clearly understand the crucial difference between vulnerability and threat. Let me explain, What you are seeing is water,wall,man,crack. so Water is on the left side of the wall partially filled below the crack. Man is standing right side of the wall holding finger on wall right at point of crack.
In this situation, The water is the threat to the man if it overflows, getting the man wet. There is also a small crack in the wall, that is the vulnerability that threatens the man and cause harm if water level rises.

To Address this issues, we have countermeasures i.e Control. Before protecting the valuable assets, we need to know what types of harm can be caused to protect it against, therefore Threats is the topic of study in next blog.

In next blog we will discuss Threats in detail