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Linux Securities to Protect Your Data

In: Computers and Technology

Submitted By Cadavissr31
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Linux Securities to Protect Your Data

Chris Davis
IT302 Linux Administration
April 8, 2012

Linux has been deemed one of the most secure operating systems available to date. So what makes Linux one of the top secure operating systems? That is the question that we will be answering with this paper.
Starting with SELinux which was started by the NSA (National Security Agency) and had additions from several other groups such as Network Associates, Treys, and others.
Released as a set of patches in the beginning SELinux has molded its way into the Linux kernel as of kernel release 2.6. This was needed since in the early stages of SELinux it provided its own security framework which caused issues with GNU/Linux because it put Linux into a single access-control architecture. To correct this situation the Linux kernel inherited a generic framework that separated policy from enforcement.
This created the LSM (Linux Security Framework). LSM provides the way that security models are implemented as loadable kernel modules.
So what actually makes SELinux such an enhanced security system? The ability to contain programs and daemons to just their bare needed access needs. This is all done through access control. MAC (Mandatory Access Control not Media Access Control) which is more secure than its counterpart DAC (Discretionary Access Control). But SELinux even went a step further by adding RBAC (Role Based Access Control). RBAC works with the roles each user and/or groups has assigned to their login. Since a role can represent multiple users, but it also represents the permissions that a set of users can perform, SELinux uses this to control the access levels.
Linux also has several other security features that help make it on the most secure operating systems to date.
Chroot jail is another one of these functions. Chroot is an operation that made its first

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