Getting Started with OpenVMS: A Guide for New Users
A practical introduction to OpenVMS terminology and approach to common concepts.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Getting Started with OpenVMS: A Guide for New Users
Chapter 10: System Security
This chapter explains some of the ways OpenVMS attempts to ensure system security. It is important to note that implementing perfect security is impractical, if not impossible. A system with minimal security is the easiest to use, but also the easiest to misuse. On the other hand, a system with very strict security is difficult to misuse, but also makes it difficult for authorized users to perform their work. Furthermore, authorized users who either accidentally or intentionally misuse the system cause the majority of security problems.
This chapter will introduce some of the features of OpenVMS that try to provide a secure, yet usable environment.
What Is System Security?
When asked that question, many people envision teenage "crackers" spending late nights attempting to break into systems halfway across the world. This is certainly part of the story, but by no means all of it.
The word hacker is currently being fought over (although the war may already be lost.) It has historically meant a particularly skilled user and hardly ever meant someone with harmful intentions. A useful program, often of the quick-and-dirty type, was referred to as "a nice hack." During the past two decades, it has come to mean, in the minds of many, only those individuals seeking to penetrate system security. To those familiar with the history of the terms, cracker is a more appropriate term for these individuals.
In the past, the present, and likely well into the future, system security has...
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