Red Hat Enterprise Linux on IBM solutions certified by Russian Government Agency

Red Hat today announced together with IBM and VDEL, a leading IT services distribution company in Eastern Europe and Russia, that state certification has been awarded by the Russian Federal Service for Technical and Export Control (FSTEK) for Red Hat Enterprise Linux on various IBM solutions. Russian Government institutions can now use IBM System x, IBM BladeCenter, IBM System p, IBM System i and IBM System z servers with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Following the joint efforts of IBM, Red Hat and VDEL, Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS and WS 4 Update 1 + Audit Pack 1 has been certified on all IBM hardware platforms to the EAL4 and UDF4 levels.

This specific Russian security certification allows Red Hat Enterprise Linux, running on IBM servers, to be used for work with confidential data within government bodies in the country. The process of certification involved recompilation, analysis of related documentation and all aspects of development, testing and support for the product that was performed by the Center for Security of Information (CBI). With the open source software, CBI had to rebuild over 700 packages to determine that the binaries are 100 percent produced from the corresponding source code.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux has achieved a number of international certifications for security, the most important of which is the certification to the Common Criteria standards both in the United States and Russia. These criteria are developed by delegates from over 20 countries and are an internationally recognized ISO standard (ISO/IEC 15408). The Common Criteria defines the procedure for product evaluation, the assessment of which is performed in approved laboratories. Certification is made according to one of the accepted defense profiles, describing the security system from a functional point of view for one of the Assurance Levels, thus illustrating the compliance of the system to the proposed criteria.

“Today's announcement is an important achievement that will help increase the popularity of Linux in the Government sector,” said Denis Sosnovtsev, Director of Linux Competance Center, IBM. “Receiving the FSTEK certificate for the whole line of IBM servers running Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a major endorsement for the quality and reliability of Open Source software.”

“The high level of security built into Red Hat Enterprise Linux is one of the many reasons that government departments with high security requirements choose Red Hat Enterprise Linux as a basis for their IT infrastructure,” said Werner Knoblich, Vice President and General Manager for EMEA, Red Hat. “Red Hat Enterprise Linux has been accepted for use at the government level in China, France, Germany and many other countries. This certification awarded in Moscow is further recognition that the Red Hat platform is trusted by the world’s most influential governments.”

“Certification of Red Hat Enterprise Linux on the IBM Platform according to the FSTEK requirements is an important step in Russian IT development. It allows state departments that have high security requirements to benefit from the latest developments in the software world,” said Milan Prohaska, CEO, VDEL. “VDEL is delighted with this outcome and is proud to be a contributor in this solution.”

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