On Wed, 26 Nov 2008 10:54:14 -0500, Gabriel Tully <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>On Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 9:51 AM, Jim Marshall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> Interesting for those a fancy for security. >> >> The IBM System z10 Enterprise Class (z10 EC) now joins previous IBM >> mainframes as the world's only servers with the highest level of hardware >> security certification, Common Criteria Evaluation Assurance Level 5 (EAL5). > > >Not the 'world's only' anymore? > >== >By Kelly Jackson Higgins >http://www.darkreading.com/security/app-security/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212100421 >...snipped... I think I can make a few comments without getting into trouble. I'm not making these as official IBM statements, but as a reader of that IBM announcement and the Integrity-178B announcement, and as someone familiar with Common Criteria evaluations from my work on the evaluations of z/OS. First, the IBM announcement about the IBM System z10 EC is talking about server hardware. On the other hand, the Integrity-178B, from their literature, seems thus far to have been used only in embedded military applications, and runs on a PowerPC. I can't comment on their plans for marketing to the private sector as I don't know them. But at this point, at least, I think it's safe to say that their are significant differences between a z10 EC and a PowerPC processor. Next, I might question the statement about Integrity-178B being certified as EAL6+. Technically (as stated in its evaluation report) Integrity-178B does not satisfy the requirements of any EAL. Nor does the security target claim that Integrity-178B satisfies the requirements of EAL6. That security target is based on a protection profile whose authors made changes to the assurance requirements laid out in the Common Criteria definition. The authors of the protection profile basically established a set of assurances requirements that started with the formal EAL6 definitions, but then modified them in ways that technically and formally make them no longer EAL6, nor directly comparable to EAL6. And the protection profile authors do not claim any specific EAL for their protection profile. Thus, the most one should be able to say is that Integrity-178B satisfies the requirements of the protection profile (SKPP) they used for the evaluation. I should note that I'm not denying the potential usefulness of Integrity-178B in some cases. You may have an OS that runs on the PowerPC and you may have requirements for running it that require you to run it under a separation kernel in an environment needing high robustness (in a security sense). In that case something like Integrity-178B may be of interest to you. But personally, I would not call it an operating system (I would call it a hypervisor) nor would I claim it as EAL6+. -- Walt ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
