You have probably read about Microsoft’s partnership with the United States Air Force that revamped a secure version of Windows XP for deployment.  Microsoft partnered with the Air Force to deploy a version of XP with more than 600 settings locked down, and critical security patches installed in an average of 72 hours instead of 57 days.

The Air Force asked Microsoft to deliver a secure configuration of Windows XP out of the box so administrators would not spend so much time hardening workstations.   NSA pen-testers found out that more than two-thirds of their intrusions were possible because of poorly configured software.  In many cases, the operating system arrived with additional features, that were unsecured, and these features were never hardened by Air Force administrators.   To read the full story, check out Wired’s article;

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/04/air-force-windows/

Well, another government has been creating and deploying secure operation systems as well.  At the recent hearing of the U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission on April 30,  G. Coleman, a private security specialist, disclosed more information about the secure operating system, known as Kylin.   China has already begun installing this home grown secured operation system on government and military systems. Kylin is said to be compatible with other commonly operating systems and it has been authenticated by the international Linux Standard Base and Free Standards Group.   Kylin is part of China’s national 863 Plan, the program to make China a leading country high technology.  You can read the Times article here:
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/12/china-bolsters-for-cyber-arms-race-with-us/

Check out The CIP Vigilance Blog Post for more information and a link to the Kylin .ISO file and manual. Thanks CIP Vigilance!

http://ciip.wordpress.com/2009/05/12/the-truth-about-kylin-os-chinas-new-cyber-great-wall/