...With a world that is vastly growing in size so does our use for technology. With this use of technology come lots of potential threats and hazards. Our world today is ever so growing with its relationship with the internet or World Wide Web (WWW). Many places use the internet to access sites, software, music, book, and so forth, the list goes on. But with this advance in technology come lots of threats to consumers alike. Such as hackers, viruses, people who don’t know what they are doing, and even people who you may call your best friend. Threat comes in many shapes and sizes which is why operating systems such as Linux develop ways to keep your personal files safe from these unwarranted threats. Some of these measures include, but is not limited to; iptables, SELinux, chroot jail, TCP Wrappers, firewalls, PolicyKit, NX or No eXecute, PIE or Position Independent Executables, Netfilter, and the list goes on (“Fedora Projects” & Vepstas). When a user first approaches Linux it looks similar to what a windows operating system would resemble. With Linux a user has the ability to access every file within the operating system through the use of a terminal or command prompt. Through the use of Linux programming potential threats can gain access to you file system and everything housed within it. Linux is free software that comes with many great security features that any user or administrator greater access and control over the system. The choice can be a bit much for most...
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...|Linux Security Technology | | 1. SELinux SELinux, an implementation of Mandatory Access Control (MAC) in the Linux kernel, adds the ability to administratively define policies on all subjects (processes) and objects (devices, files, and signaled processes). This mechanism is in the Linux kernel, checking for allowed operations after standard Linux Discretionary Access Controls DAC are checked. Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux) is a Linux feature that provides a mechanism for supporting access control security policies, including United States Department of Defense-style mandatory access controls, through the use of Linux Security Modules (LSM) in the Linux kernel. It is not a Linux distribution, but rather a set of Kernel modifications and user-space tools that can be added to various Linux distributions. Its architecture strives to separate enforcement of security decisions from the security policy itself and streamlines the volume of software charged with security policy enforcement. The key concepts underlying SELinux can be traced to several earlier projects by the United States National Security Agency (NSA), It has been integrated into the mainline Linux kernel since version 2.6. NSA, the original primary developer of SELinux, released the first version to the open source development community under the GNU GPL on December 22, 2000. Security-enhanced Linux...
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...George McShane Research Paper 07/13/2012 Linux Security Technologies In today’s world there are many ways to gain access to the internet. You can go to your local library, a Starbucks, any airport, or even a McDonald’s. With all of these ways to have free access to the Web, the opportunity for hacker’s to get to your personal information is at an all time high. Linux programming has many ways to combat this situation with security technologies such as SELinux, chroot jail, iptables, and virtual private networks (VPN’s) to name a few. The basics of Linux security start with Discretionary Access Control, which is based by users and groups. The process starts with a user, who has access to anything that any other user can have access to. At first, it may seem great to be able to have that access, but the security in it is not so great. The US National Security Agency (NSA) developed the SELinux (Security Enhanced Linux) to combat the lack of strong security. (National Security Agency Central Security Service, 2009) Other organizations behind SELinux include the Network Associate Laboratories (NAI) labs which implemented several additional kernel mandatory access controls, developed the example security policy configuration, ported to the Linux 2.4 kernel, contributed to the development of the Linux Security Modules kernel patch, and adapted the SELinux prototype to LSM. The MITRE Corporation which enhanced several utilities to be SELinux-aware, and developed application...
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...There are different types of Linux Security Technologies. Discretionary Access Control, SELinux (Security Enhanced Linux), chroot jail, and iptables are just a few. This paper is only going to discuss the latter three. Discretionary Access Control is the more traditional, however; DAC is not as secure and will not be discussed here.1 The U.S National Security Agency (NSA) is the organization behind the creation of SELinux. The reason the NSA is involved in this project is because this organization is responsible for carrying out the research and advanced development of technologies needed to enable NSA to provide the solutions, products, and services to achieve Information Assurance for information infrastructures critical to U.S. National Security interests. The NSA implemented a Mandatory Access control within the Linux Kernel. This MAC is named Flask.2 There are three main policies that SELinux uses to apply MAC. There is the Targeted, where the MAC controls will only be used for a specific process or processes, there is the Multilevel Security protection, and the Strict. The strict puts MAC controls to all processes. The targeted is not as secure as the strict, however; the targeted is easier to maintain. If one uses the strict, the administrator will have to customize the policy. Failure to do so could cause other users a significant problem in performing his or her assigned duties. 3 The main reason the MAC has been created is to help prevent security...
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...Linux Security Technologies SELinux (Security Enhanced Linux) is a mandatory access control in the Linux kernel that was originally developed by NSA (National Security Agency) with direct contributions provided by Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) via the Fedora Project. In the day and age of identity theft and attempted sabotage from terrorists against our country, it should be very apparent why an organization like NSA had such an interest in heading up development of a more secure way to better protect our nation’s computer systems. In a world so largely dependent on computer systems, inadequate security measures could lead to anything from having a single person’s financial information compromised to an electronic 9/11 against some of our country’s most secure federal computer networks. In the modern computer based society we live in, security is essential to protecting everything from personal desktops all the way up to the most secure federal databases. And many corporate and government level computers are based on the Linux kernel. SELinux has 3 states it can be in if on a system: Enabled, Disabled, and Permissive. Enforcing means SELinux security policy is active, Disabled means SELinux security policy is not active, and Permissive is a diagnostic state commonly used for troubleshooting. To better understand what improvements Mandatory Access Control (MAC) can provide for security, one needs to know about the standard Linux security provision called Discretionary...
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...Creating a usable secure operating system remains a critical research problem. Linux has several security developments included in its open source operating system. Among these are SELinux, chroot jail, and iptables to name a few. SELinux is Security Enhanced Linux. The National Information Assurance Research Laboratory of the National Security Agency was in charge of carrying out the research and advanced development of technologies needed to enable the NSA to provide the solutions, products, and services to achieve Information Assurance for information infrastructures essential to the security of the U.S. National Security. The Security-enhanced Linux prototype was developed by the NSA along with research partners from NAI Labs, Secure Computing Corporation (SCC), and the MITRE Corporation. Many other contributions have followed since the initial release.(NSA-National Security Agency, 2009) Researchers in the National Information Assurance Research Laboratory of NSA worked with Secure Computing Corporation (SCC) to develop a strong, flexible mandatory access control architecture based on a mechanism first developed for the LOCK system called Type Enforcement. The NSA and SCC then worked with the University of Utah’s Flux research group to transfer the architecture to the Fluke research operating system. The architecture was enhanced, when it was transferred, to provide better support for dynamic security policies. This enhanced architecture was named Flask. SELinux implements...
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...Robin Prather January 14, 2013 Linux System Administration Week 2 Homework Assignment 2.1 There are many organizations and contributing members that are involved in the SELinux project, but namely the NSA seems to be in the top ranks of this particular technology. Researchers in NSA's National Information Assurance Research Laboratory (NIARL) designed and implemented flexible mandatory access controls in the major subsystems of the Linux kernel and implemented the new operating system components provided by the Flask architecture, namely the security server and the access vector cache. The NSA researchers reworked the LSM-based SELinux for inclusion in Linux 2.6. Creating a viable secure operating system remains a critical research problem. Our goal is the creation of an efficient architecture that provides requisite support for security, executes programs in a way that is largely transparent to the user, and is attractive to vendors. We believe an essential step in attaining this goal is to show how mandatory access controls can be successfully integrated into a mainstream operating system. The notion of a secure system includes many attributes (e.g., physical security, personnel security, etc.) and Security-enhanced Linux addresses only a very narrow set of these attributes (i.e., mandatory access controls in the operating system). Put another way, "secure system" means safe enough to protect some real world information from some real world adversary that the information...
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...Research Assignment Linux Security Technologies Kristy Graves ITT Tech – Dayton Linux II IT302 Mandatory Access Control Mandatory Access Control (MAC) is a system wide policy that relies on the current system to control access (Syracuse University, 2009). Users cannot alter or make any changes to this policy. Only the administrator has the clearance and authorization to make changes (The Computer Language Company Inc., 2012). Mandatory access control mechanisms are more than Discretionary Access Control (DAC) but have trade offs in performance and convenience to all users (The Open Web Application Security Project, 2002). Users can access lower level documentation, but they cannot access higher level without the process of declassification. Access is authorized or restricted based on the security characteristics of the HTTP client. This can be due to SSL bit length, version information, originating IP address or domain, etc. Systems supporting flexible security models can be SELinux, Trusted Solaris, TrustedBSD, etc. DAC checks the validity of the credentials given by the user. MAC validate aspects which are out of the hands of the user (Coar, 2000). If there is no DAC list on an object, full access is granted to any user (Microsoft, 2012). SELinux SELinux has three states of operation. These states are enforcing, permissive, and disabled. SELinux was developed by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) and implements MAC in a Linux kernel (Sobell, 2011). Enforcing...
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...Exploring Linux Operating Systems What is Linux? Linux is an Operating System for a computer; it is like other Operating Systems such as Windows and the OS X for MAC. Linux was created in 1991 and has been found on many different systems like Super Computers, cell phones, and even the New York stock exchange. What sets Linux apart from other Operating Systems is that Linux is made by several different companies. According to www.linux.com over 3,200 developers have from 200 companies have contributed to the kernel which is just a small piece of the distribution. How is Linux used today? While other Operating Systems are very limited to personal computing devices, Linux is not limited it can be found on many different things. Linux had its start as a server Operating System but is also one of the only Operating System that can be found on more than just a personal computer. Some of the different things it can be found on taken from www.linux.com “These are just the most recent examples of Linux-based devices available to consumers worldwide. This actual number of items that use Linux numbers in the thousands.” www.linux.com File Editors Coming from a Windows Operating System pretty much my whole life, which means I only have experience with GUI editors such as Notepad from Windows. After working with Linux and its file editors this past week I found it much faster and easier than using the notepad system in Windows. There are two different kinds of editors...
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...computer or network hardware. The functions of an operating system are to handle the interface to peripheral hardware, schedules tasks, allocates storage and presents a default interface to the user when no application program is running. Explain at least 5 differences among Windows, Linux and Mac OS X operating systems. Windows 1. Most commonly used OS on client computers. 2. All-in-one OS/GUI 3. Uses Internet Explorer web browser. 4. Incorporates many applications for end-user including word pad, command prompt and windows explorer. 5. Developers focus most on compiling programs that run efficiently on Windows. Linux 1. Has a larger market share when it comes to servers and other computer devices. 2. Option of using GNOME or KDE GUI’s. 3. Free to download but licensed under GPL. 4. Apps are meant to run on various Linux platforms but can also be compiled to run in Windows and Mac OS X. 5. KDE is a more powerful environment that includes a web browser called Konqueror. Mac OS X 1. Is not compatible with PC hardware. 2. Is not compatible with PC-based OS (Windows and Linux) 3. Uses anti-aliasing technologies. 4. Uses color sync technologies. 5. Uses drop shadow technologies. 6. Uses Safari instead of Internet...
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...on a hard drive, or managing connected devices such as a printer. An operating system will make a computer secure to each different user and user specific by requiring a password for each user. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN WINDOWS, MAC OS X, AND LINUX Microsoft Windows is the most preferred operating system among computer users. Microsoft Windows consists of different operating systems developed and sold by Microsoft. Windows is available on desktops, laptops, phones, servers, and tablets. The first Microsoft operating system was released in 1985 and MS-DOS was the only Graphical User Interface. The small Microsoft Company skyrocketed through the 90's and millennium with the massive growth of computers around the workplace and eventually at home. The latest Microsoft Windows operating system is Microsoft Windows 10 and was released in late 2014. Many desktops and laptops received a free upgrade courtesy of Microsoft. Microsoft 10 upgraded to stylish icons like Mac OSX. The Mac OS X is Apple specific to Macintosh machines. OS X was developed and marketed by Apple Inc. and came preinstalled on all Mac desktops and laptops since 2002. In addition, MAC OS X is a great platform for software and graphic engineers because it supports technologies like UNIX, Java, Cocoa, Carbon, Database, and Scripting. The Mac OSX comes with expansive software packages that come preinstalled or can be...
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...1. The 1st vendor is IBM which uses power servers that runs both Red Hat and SUSE Linux server operating systems, offering a scalable alternative for your open source application. a. Red Hat has big business support and its easy to find certified technicians, administrators and engineers who know their way around Red Hat. Its also supported on a wide variety of hardware whether your running x86 servers on racks, blade servers, IBM power systems, or mainframes then Red Hat is your best choice b. Ubuntu is a great linux server that offers free upgrades and support. It provides windows integration and a cloud system. Provides an easy to use GUI to many manage many machines at once, group machines that match your needs. Workstations 1. Penguin computing Linux workstations they offer three different workstation models a. Tempest 4201: The Tempest 4201 is based on the latest generation of AMD Opteron processors. The 4201 is the right server for real power users with demanding I/O intensive applications. The Platinum power supply makes this system extremely power efficient and best of all. b. Tempest 4400: With up to 64 processor cores and 512GB of RAM the Tempest 4400 delivers the performance of a small cluster in a desktop form factor with server-grade RAS options. c. Niveus 5200: The Niveus is an expert workstation that features Intel's latest CPU and IO technologies. It is ideal for demanding applications. The Niveus 5200 supports the highest processor...
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...software applications can operate accordingly. Operating systems can be found in almost any type of a computer device such as personal computers, supercomputers, cellular telephones, and video game consoles as stated by Linux Systems (2011). As the research was being conducted for this paper, it raised a question whether the internet uses the operating system? It proved to be a challenge to actually pin point the most common operating systems on the Internet, but as the research continued, it was obvious that these three, Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux are considered to be the most common operating systems used on the Internet today. Background of each Operating System Windows Privately owned operating systems, Microsoft Windows is generally used on personal computers and as of today, the most commonly used version is Windows XP with the new version of Windows 7 for personal computers and Windows Server 2008 R2 for servers is entering the market. Mac OS X Mac OS X is a graphical operating system which is designed and distributed by Apple Incorporated is considered to be partially privately owned. Its latest version of software is pre-loaded on all of the Macintosh Computers and is also a UNIX operating system that uses advanced technology. Linux Is an operating system that can be used on a variety of devices such as personal computers, supercomputers, and some hand...
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...under a framework using PHP/MySQL(LAMP), CakePHP(Framework), AJAX, JSON, JS, DHTML, CSS etc. Database Design Site Maintenance ♣ Job Duration Since 4th March, 2008 EVOKNOW: An American web based software development firm ♣ Job Designation Software Engineer ♣ Job Responsibilities Web development under a framework using PHP/MySQL, AJAX, JSON, JS, DHTML, CSS, SMARTY etc. Site Maintenance ♣ Job Duration 1 year GSM International: An USA based customer care center ♣ Job Responsibilities Online Advertisement Online Marketing Customer Dealings ♣ Job Duration 3 months CAREER OBJECTIVE To be a smart & innovative person who can incorporate new idea, technology, knowledge, experience & productivity for constructive involvement towards the emergent scenario of Information & Communication Technology. My skills and experiences must enhance the success of your company and my personal development also. PROFESSION AS A SOFTWA RE...
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... Any topic (writer's choice) Name Institution Paper instructions: Describe some reasons why Linux is installed on only a very small fraction of desktop computers. Linux is a robust multi-tasking networked open source operating system that has attracted a large market in recent past. The operating system is becoming popular with mobile phones and enterprise software and can only be installed on a small fraction of desktop computers for the following reasons; The installation process can get complex at times to a normal user. This may require support which may increase the total cost of ownership despite the software being free. Also the number of users using Linux desktop deployment is small which keeps firms off from porting desktop applications to a Linux environment. In addition, only a small amount of money is saved when someone decides to invest in Windows operating system. Are there particular categories of products or users who might see Linux as more appealing than conventional operating systems? Do you think Linux's share of the desktop market will increase? Why or why not? Linux offers robust security measures making it hard to be hacked. Firms running sensitive data and information could improve the security of their systems by using Linux as opposed to MS-Windows which is vulnerable to hacking (Gallaugher, 2013). Similarly the operating system is not prone to virus attacks...
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