Mandrakesoft to Participate in Development of Highly Secure Open Operating System Solution

(Auszug aus der Pressemitteilung)

Paris, France – September 23rd, 2004 – An industrial

consortium consisting of Bertin Technologies, Surlog, Jaluna,
Mandrakesoft, and Oppida, all major European players in security,
operating system, and certification technologies, has been awarded a 7
million euro, 3 year contract by the French Ministry of Defense. Under
the contract, the consortium will develop a Linux based multi-level
security operating system solution meeting Evaluation Assurance Level
5 of the Common Criteria (CC-EAL5). CC-EAL5 guarantees an outstanding
security level for an operating system, and satisfies major security
requirements in both commercial as well as defense and government
applications.

“Security is a major concern in today’s embedded and
networked computer systems, desktops and servers alike”, said
Philippe Demigné, chairman, Bertin Technologies. “We are very
proud to have been chosen by the French Ministry of Defense to manage
this challenging project and to enrich operating systems with
innovative security features. Our security architecture is the cement
of the project. It binds together each partner’s expertise”.
Bertin Technologies will be responsible in particular for CC-EAL5
evaluation.

Consortium partners envision that hardware partitioning and
virtualization technology will play a key role in designing future
open operating system security solutions.

Jaluna, the operating system experts that recently introduced
innovative technology allowing multiple operating system instances to
share the same embedded system hardware, is responsible for the system
development. “Jaluna’s vision has been validated by the
choice of Jaluna/OSware(TM) as the software foundation for the
project”, said Michel Gien, CEO, Jaluna SA. “We are very
happy to contribute our well known operating system expertise towards
such an ambitious goal”.

Mandrakesoft will contribute and adapt its Linux operating system, and
manage the Open Source community around the future results of the
project. The project will be released under an open-source license
following completion. Mandrakesoft’s share amounts to 1 million euros.
“Such a project makes the most of the Open Source development
model”, commented François Bancilhon, CEO, Mandrakesoft.
“It will leverage the power of Open Source, first by reusing a
good deal of preexisting software, and second, by letting the
community survey and improve the code. Mandrakesoft is naturally proud
to lend its skills to such a project – it is our most important
to date and a major milestone for the company”, he added.

Surlog will instrument and monitor software development processes to
insure that the very high certification level required by the project
can be achieved. “The ambitious objective of a certification at
CC-EAL5 level for an operating system is a true challenge that can be
achieved by expanding approved techniques, methods and tools for
dependability and safety with those of security”, said Marie Catherine
Monégier du Sorbier, CEO, Surlog SA. “Our tools and recognized
expertise in building, monitoring and auditing complex software
development processes in critical systems will be key to achieve such
a high level of security certification.”

Evaluation against the ISO 15408 Common Criteria standard will be
performed by Oppida, one of the very few organizations accredited by
the French National Security Agency to perform information technology
security evaluation. “Certification against a recognized
international standard is essential for users to trust the operating
system they rely on for their operation”, said Hervé Hosy, CEO,
Oppida SA. “This is precisely Oppida’s core expertise.
We will perform regular evaluations of project intermediate results
until the ultimate CC-EAL5 evaluation.”

The scope of the certified Linux-based multi-level security solution
that will be developed by the consortium goes far beyond military
utilization. It is intended to address the industrial market at large,
as well as telecommunication and enterprise systems. Major industry
players worldwide will be invited to join the project as associates,
and express their requirements and interact with the development team.

“This will be a world first for an operating system solution of
such a wide scope and we are proud to be at the heart of such a
challenge”, concluded Philippe Demigné, chairman, Bertin
Technologies.