In developing the Trusted Solaris operating environment, Sun's engineers hardened
the SolarisTM 2.5 operating environment by adding sensitivity labels and extending
the windowing system to enforce access to data based on its sensitivity.
"With the Trusted Solaris operating environment, customers who operate in
a networked environment can protect their confidential data, like salary information,
research data or financial transactions, from unauthorized access," said Joe
Alexander, Trusted Solaris product manager at Sun Microsystems. "Unauthorized
users trying to access sensitive information on a server running the Trusted Solaris
operating environment will be denied access without knowing whether the information
even exists. We do this by invoking Mandatory Access Controls, which enforce a site's
customer-specified security policy. At this time, Windows NT does not possess this
feature."
The Trusted Solaris operating environment also boasts a higher security level in
the government sector when compared to Windows NT. Security ratings are one of several
evaluations awarded by the National Security Agency (NSA) based on its Trusted Computer
System Evaluation Criteria (TCSEC), or "Orange Book" criteria. Security
levels for operating systems range from D the lowest, to A1 the highest. The Trusted
Solaris 2.5.1 operating environment was recently awarded the U.K. ITSEC board's
highly-secure E3/F-B1, which exceeds the U.S. ITSEC B1 rating, along with the U.K.
ITSEC E3/F-C2 certification, which includes access control lists and trusted advisory
labelling. In contrast, Windows NT claims C2 certification only for its 3.5.1 operating
system.
Based on the Common Desktop Environment (CDE), the Trusted Solaris 2.5.1 operating
environment secures information from both internal and external threats. It runs
on Sun's UltraSPARCTM platforms, from the Sun UltraTM 5 workstation to the Sun Ultra
EnterpriseTM 6500 server, while providing interoperability with standard UNIX hosts.
For more information about the security advantages of the Trusted Solaris operating
environment, visit Sun Microsystems' Reality Check Web site at http://www.sun.com/realitycheck.
About Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision, "The Network Is The ComputerTM,"
has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SUNW), to its position as a leading
provider of high quality hardware, software and services for establishing enterprise-wide
intranets and expanding the power of the Internet. With more than $10 billion in
annual revenues, Sun can be found in more than 150 countries and on the World Wide
Web at http://sun.com.
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