U.S. Department of Defense releases security configuration standard for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7

24. April 2017Red Hat U.S. Public Sector Team

Government-wide, agencies are turning to open source software to enable faster innovation, lower costs, and better security. For the defense and military industries in particular, there is significant potential for innovation with open source technology. However, with new threats appearing every day, developing advanced solutions that can meet customer requirements for security features, agility and performance is critical.

Red Hat has a long history of working with the federal government and with defense agencies to create solutions that put security first and which can meet the requirements of even the world’s most security-intensive environments. Most recently, the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) published a Security Technical Implementation Guide (STIG) for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. This distinction gives government customers the confidence that Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 can be configured to meet highest security requirements for use within military information systems.

STIGs are the configuration standards for DoD Information Assurance (IA) and IA-enabled devices/systems. They play a critical role enhancing DoD's security systems by providing technical guidance to "lock down" information systems and software that might otherwise be vulnerable to a malicious cyber attack.

The Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 STIG reflects more than 200 security-relevant configuration checks, with topics including data encryption, secure communications, identity management, and proper configuration of user activity auditing. The publication of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 STIG enables government and military organizations to more easily deploy Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 with a DoD approved security baseline.

As a precondition of receiving STIG approval, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 received Common Criteria certification, an international framework for specifying and testing functional and assurance security requirements in IT products.

Red Hat delivers STIG content natively in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, providing U.S. government customers with the ability to deploy directly into the approved DoD configuration without having to make significant additional modifications post-installation