" ITREALMS: Novell creates AppArmor project for Linux

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Novell creates AppArmor project for Linux

United States-based Novell Inc developer of software for the open enterprise with office in South Africa, has announced the creation of the AppArmor project, a new open source initiative dedicated to advancing the state of the art of Linux’s application security.

Managing Director of Novell Africa office, Mr. Graham Hallworth, informed that Linux application security technology is vital for protecting Linux systems from external or internal attacks, viruses, and malicious applications.

The technology, he said, fills a major void among open source offerings by providing easy-to-use configuration and monitoring tools along with tight integration with the Linux operating system.

As a result, the managing director noted, businesses could reduce threats, protect critical corporate data, reduce security administration costs and comply with government regulations.

The software house, has also donated the core components of its Novell’s AppArmor framework to provide a foundation for the project.

Mr. Hallworth pointed out that Novell AppArmor is the only enterprise-deployable Linux application security solution that could be applied in hours, not days, and maintained cost-effectively without requiring high-level Linux and security expertise.

“Novell is focused on ensuring open source technology can meet the most demanding enterprise needs, and few issues are as important to enterprises as having a very simple means to ensure application security,” said executive vice president and chief technology officer Jeff Jaffe, for Novell.”

He explained that with AppArmor technology now freely available under open source license, the community has at its disposal some excellent technology to address security issues.

This, Mr. Jaffe said, demonstrates Novell’s ongoing commitment to enterprise-class security as well as the firm’s continuing leadership of key community initiatives.

According to a recent report by the SysAdmin, Audit, Network, Security (SANS) Institute, applications have become the primary target of attackers trying to break into business and government networks.

AppArmor protects critical data on Linux by making sure application flaws could be exploited by attackers, easily protecting applications from intrusions and threats without forcing IT staff to rely on emergency patching.

Novell’s project Mr. Jeffe also provides security that is simple enough to achieve widespread adoption, instead of being switched off and ignored as often happens with complex access control systems like SELinux.

The AppArmor project is the latest addition to Novell’s portfolio of open source initiatives, including the fast-growing openSUSE project.

The community-based effort provides developers complete access to the latest AppArmor code and tools to facilitate the review, testing and development of the AppArmor technology.

Industry and community leaders support the AppArmor project industry leaders are expressing strong support for the AppArmor project and agree the project will create better technologies, which protect mission-critical data hosted on Linux systems in the enterprise.

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