A Comparative Study of Security Mechanism differentiation between Windows 2000 and UNIX Operating Systems

Abstract

"Security" is hard to formalize, hard to design (and design for), hard to implement, hard to verify, hard to configure, and hard to use. It is particularly hard to use on a platform such as Windows, which is evolving, security-wise, along with its representative user-base. The primary environment in which a typical Windows system exists has traditionally been hostile, especially after the advent of the Internet. While UNIX systems share the same environment today, their traditional environments were comparatively trusted: research labs and universities. Similarly, UNIX users have had backgrounds differing from Windows users.

Keywords: UNIX, Windows 2000, Security Mechanism, Operating System