[Info-vax] Some Reading on System and Server Security

[Stephen Hoffman]

As OpenVMS claims to be "the most secure operating system on the 
planet", here is some related reading on what other operating systems 
have implemented:


First some hardware...

AMD Secure Encrypted Virtualization:  https://developer.amd.com/sev/
"Hardware accelerated memory encryption for data-in-use protection. 
Takes advantage of new security components available in AMD EPYC 
processors"

Intel MKTME: 
https://schd.ws/hosted_files/kvmforum2018/f6/mktme_kvm_forum_2018.pdf
"Protect Data of Virtual Machines with MKTME on KVM"



Then a Windows-related change...

Windows Sandbox: 
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Windows-Kernel-Internals/Windows-Sandbox/ba-p/301849 

"...Windows Sandbox: an isolated, temporary, desktop environment where 
you can run untrusted software without the fear of lasting impact to 
your PC. Any software installed in Windows Sandbox stays only in the 
sandbox and cannot affect your host. Once Windows Sandbox is closed, 
all the software with all its files and state are permanently deleted."



And some interesting and security-focused operating systems of note...

HardenedBSD: https://hardenedbsd.org/content/about
"HardenedBSD is a security-enhanced fork of FreeBSD. The HardenedBSD 
Project is implementing many exploit mitigation and security 
technologies on top of FreeBSD. The project started with Address Space 
Layout Randomization (ASLR) as an initial focal point and is now 
implementing further exploit mitigation techniques."   This reference 
included largely as there was a recent comment else-thread claiming 
there were already too many BSD variants around, so here's an 
additional BSD variant to ponder.

seL4: https://sel4.systems    https://sel4.systems/Info/Docs/seL4-brochure.pdf
"The world's first operating-system kernel with an end-to-end proof of 
implementation correctness and security enforcement is available as 
open source."



For folks interested in security-related reading:
https://www.humblebundle.com/books/hacking-for-the-holidays-books
The _Serious Cryptography_ book is well worth a read for anyone 
interested in modern crypto, and this is the cheapest I've seen it 
priced.   I routinely use Metasploit to look for common configuration 
errors on OpenVMS systems, too.




-- 
Pure Personal Opinion | HoffmanLabs LLC