Compartmentalized computing with CLIP OS
Compartmentalized computing with CLIP OS
People searching for a hardened Linux distribution have a wide range to choose from: they can use one of the security-focused offerings, or they can, with sufficient expertise, simply apply hardening patches and build everything to their taste. Such systems, of which Qubes OS is a good example, usually concentrate on the user's privacy. Recently, the French cybersecurity agency (ANSSI) released the source code for CLIP OS, its hardened operating system based on Linux. CLIP OS has been in development for more than ten years and, while sharing many elements with other hardened Linux distributions, this one is targeted to different needs: the focus is on providing maximum isolation between confidentiality levels and different users of the same system. As an illustration: the administrator is not able to access other users' data.