CSEC 600 computing basics and operating systems

hardware

the physical components of a computer

CPU

brain of the computer

RAM

short-term memory

storage

(HDD/SSD), long term memory

motherboard

the main circuit board

I/O devices

keyboards, monitors, network cards

operating system

loads software into memory (RAM) and schedules CPU time for the task, bridge between users, software, and hardware (Windows, Linux, macOS, mobile OS)

USB & SATA

route communications between CPU, memory, and I/O dveices

BIOS/UEFI

facilitate device communication

bug

an unintended behvior or oversight that the developers did not account for

misconfiguration

errors while setting up software cause unintended consequences

poor input validation

developers didnt account for unexpected inputs

GUI

graphic user interface, user inputs graphics like buttons, etc

CLI

command line interface, user inputs through writing specific commands to be executed

system administration

the practice of managing and maintaining a computer systems core functions

users

individual identities or accounts that interact with a computer system

least privilege

only give access necessary for the task

files

store data

directories

organize files for access and maintenance

OS

handles file permissions to control read, write, and execute rights

process

an active instance of a running program

patches

fix security flaws, bugs, and imporve performance