Article
Article
Computer security
Article By:
Pfleeger, Charles P. Pfleeger Consulting Group, Washington DC.
Last reviewed:June 2021
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1036/1097-8542.153950
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- Computer security, published June 2014:Download PDF
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The process of protecting against threats to computing systems. A threat is an event that can cause harm to computers, data or programs, or computations (Fig. 1). A failure of computer security occurs because of a vulnerability or weakness in a computing system. A threat agent—person, event, or circumstance—exploits a vulnerability. Threat agents can have harmful or malicious intent, or they can be unintentional. A criminal may maliciously attack a computer system for financial gain, but even a nonmalicious user can accidentally delete important data, for example.
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