NSA Offers Security Guidelines for Sun, Apple and Red Hat To Help Protect OSes Against Certain Types of Attack

To Help Protect OSes Against Certain Types of Attack

http://www.nsa.gov/ia/guidance/security_configuration_guides/current_guides.shtml

The National Security Agency (NSA) is working with Sun, Apple and Red Hat “to develop secure baselines for their products,” commented Richard Schaeffer, the NSA’s information assurance director, on Nov. 17 at a hearing before the U.S. Senate’s Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security.

“More and more, we find that protecting national security systems demands teaming with public and private institutions to raise the information assurance level of products and services more broadly,” Schaeffer stated. “If done correctly, this is a win-win situation that benefits the whole spectrum of information technology users, from warfighters and policymakers, to federal, state, local and tribal governments, to the operators of critical infrastructure and the nation’s major arteries of commerce.”

With these measures, the NSA is responding to the increasing number of threats it perceives to critical infrastructures and economic systems, reported The H.

The NSA is only helping with creating security guidelines and check lists for protecting operating systems against certain types of attack. NSA instructions for hardening various systems, for example Mac OS X, Red Hat, Solaris and Windows, are available on the NSA’s pages. To what extent these guidelines are to differ from those that are currently in planning remains to be seen.

The NSA has helped Microsoft harden various Windows versions, including Windows XP, Windows Vista as well as Server 2003. Most recently it helped Microsoft harden Windows 7 against attacks. More….