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Secure Your OS, Courtesy Of The NSA
David Utter
Staff Writer
2007-03-19
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The National Security Agency has guides available for people who want to make their Windows, Mac OS X, and Solaris installations as secure as those used by government employees.
 | | Secure Your OS, Courtesy Of The NSA |  |
Even though a number of federal agencies have been routinely found lacking in security assessments performed by the Congress, they should be doing much better. Why agencies don't score well could be a combination of the usual suspects of staffing, time, or budget issues.
Information shouldn't be a problem when it comes to securing the operating system. The NSA lists guides for securing a trio of them, with details on versions of each.
Here's the list of operating systems where the government can help with battening down the virtual hatches:
• Apple Mac OS X 10.3 'Panther'
• Apple Mac OS X 10.4 'Tiger'
• Microsoft Windows XP
• Microsoft Windows 2000
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003
• Sun Solaris 8
• Sun Solaris 9
After accepting the Legal Notices presented by NSA, one can download the guide in compressed format. In the Windows XP download, they have also included a Security Guide Tools and Templates installer, which places everything needed to harden a client installation on the system.
Rather than attempting to create a guide for Linux, some time ago the NSA created a distribution of that operating system providing a more secure installation when used. Called Security-Enhanced Linux, it is not intended to be a "complete security solution for Linux," but a guide to limiting processes through mandatory access controls.
From the FAQ about Security-Enhanced Linux:
...the security of a modified system based on the Security-enhanced Linux kernel depends primarily on the correctness of the kernel and its security policy configuration. While problems with the correctness or configuration of applications may allow the limited compromise of individual user programs and system daemons, they do not pose a threat to the security of other user programs and system daemons or to the security of the system as a whole.
As Microsoft Vista and Apple OS X 10.5 come into broad government use, we expect NSA to update their guides to include those newer operating systems too.
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Tags: Operating System, Security, NSA
About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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