Expanded Solaris Security

http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,80268,00.html?nas=SEC-80268

Sun Expands Availability of Solaris Security

By PATRICK THIBODEAU
APRIL 14, 2003 Content Type: Story
Source: Computerworld

San Francisco—Sun Microsystems Inc. said last week that it will offer commercial
customers a version of its Solaris operating system originally developed for military and
government intelligence use. Sun intends to include the technology in its next version
of Solaris, due in mid-2004.

The security technology, called Trusted Solaris, provides role-based access control at
the root, dividing or limiting root access by user. It also creates audit trails, company
officials said. The technology supports both Sparc and Intel-based systems.

Although the commercial availability of Trusted Solaris isn't new, the company hasn't
marketed it broadly and interest has largely been limited to financial services
companies. Beginning this spring, Sun intends to market an offering that includes
firewalls and other access controls. Pricing will start at $999 for a standard desktop
edition.

Because Trusted Solaris provides access control at the root, it allows companies to
separate systems administration from operations, at the most fundamental level of the
operating system. "Just because you are the system administrator and you have root
access, I don't want to give you access to the payroll database," said Jonathan
Schwartz, executive vice president of Sun's software products group. Received on Mon Apr 21 12:09:12 2003