UNIX and Security: The Influences of History

UNIX has a reputation as an operating system that is difficult to secure. This reputation is largely unfounded. Instead, the blame lies partially with the traditional use of UNIX and partially with the poor security consciousness of its users. UNIX's reputation as a nonsecure operating system comes not from design flaws but from practice. For its first 15 years, UNIX was used primarily in academic and computer industrial environments two places where computer security has not been a priority until recently. Users in these environments often configured their systems with lax security, and even developed philosophies that viewed security as something to avoid. Because they cater to this community, (and hire from it) many UNIX vendors have been slow to incorporate stringent security mechanisms into their systems. This paper describes how the history and development of UNIX can be viewed as the source of the most serious problems. Some suggestions are made of approaches to help increase the security of your system, and of the UNIX community.