Security Countermeasures

--Originally published at Computer and Information Security

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A security countermeasure is an action, process, device or system that can prevent or reduce the effects of threats that attempt to compromise a system. Countermeasures can be software, hardware or through behavior.

Some examples of software countermeasures are:

  • Firewalls.
  • Anti-virus.
  • Pop-up blockers

There are several implementations of hardware countermeasures:

  • Alarms.
  • Routers that can block IP addresses.
  • Physical restrictions to systems.

Finally some behavior countermeasures are:

  • Deletion of cookies.
  • Backing up data.
  • Installing security updates.

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