PGP working with NSA on Linux security prototype

A division of PGP Security has entered a partnership with the U.S. National Security Agency and other partners to further develop the NSA's Security Enhanced Linux (SELinux) prototype, PGP Security announced last week.

Under a $1.2 million, two-year contract, the NAI Labs division of PGP Security, a business unit of antivirus vendor Network Associates, will focus on research and development to improve security of open-source operating system platforms, particularly Linux, PGP Security says. The goal is to reduce the threat of security breaches caused by flawed applications or malicious code. The NSA chose Linux because its open-development environment provides an opportunity to show that SELinux's security functionality can work in a mainstream operating system.

The contract builds on the NSA's work in developing a set of new security controls for the Linux kernel and NAI Labs' work in developing a basic security policy configuration for these security controls and several additional kernel controls.

NAI Labs will work with the NSA and its other partners to develop additional security controls, configure the security policy and present the security enhancements to Linux users. SELinux includes security enhancements to the operating system that can enforce the separation of information based on confidentiality and integrity requirements.

Network Associates: www.nai.com

Johnston is a correspondent with IDG News Service's Washington bureau.

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