News & Press
Green Hills Software Announces Padded Cell™ Secure
Hypervisor
The World’s First Secure Hypervisor Scales from Embedded to
Enterprise
GREEN HILLS SOFTWARE TECHNOLOGY CONFERENCE 2007, SANTA BARBARA, CA —December
11, 2007
Green Hills Software, Inc., the technology leader in device software
optimization (DSO) and real-time operating
systems (RTOS), today announced the world’s first secure hypervisor.
Padded Cell™ Secure
Hypervisor supports the widest range of computing platforms – from
embedded devices to enterprise desktop and server systems. Padded Cell
Secure Hypervisor runs on top of Green Hills Software’s INTEGRITY® separation
kernel, the first and only operating system ever to be accepted by a U.S.
NIAP lab into a high assurance (EAL6+) Common Criteria security evaluation.
"Many people believe that hypervisors are the solution to security
problems. But existing hypervisors actually make security problems worse
by providing another avenue for attack," commented Dan O’Dowd,
founder and chief executive officer, Green Hills Software. "Everybody
has become accustomed to the fail-first, patch-later mentality adopted
by the world’s largest software organizations and products. The
fact is that it is possible to build totally secure, hacker-proof software
upon which critical computing assets and resources can depend. Our introduction
of Padded Cell Secure Hypervisor continues to demonstrate this by pushing
the envelope of applications that can benefit from our proven approach
to safety, security, and reliability."
Applications of the Padded Cell Secure Hypervisor
In addition to the compartmentalization and virtualization of guest operating
systems, the Padded Cell Secure Hypervisor and its EAL6+ compliant
security policies enable breakthroughs for many of the world’s
long unresolved security problems, including the ability to: safely
browse the Internet and use email; trust the launch and execution of
virus scanning software; protect sensitive personal and medical records
from compromise; guarantee the authenticity and integrity of cash withdrawals,
wire transfers, point of sale transactions, and other high value financial
enterprises; and ensure the availability and validity of electronic
voting systems. Padded Cell Secure Hypervisor also enables the safe,
secure, reliable execution of hard real-time applications and guest
operating systems in a wide range of emerging embedded devices targeting
the networking, medical, industrial and automotive markets.
Virtualization Does Not Imply Better Security
Many commercial hypervisors suffer from the same complexity, architecture,
and vulnerability problems that result in poor security within typical
desktop operating systems and applications. In fact, security experts
have shown that software-based virtualization can actually reduce platform
security: vulnerabilities in a hypervisor can enable an attacker to
take over not just one operating environment, but all the operating
environments running on the computer. The Green Hills Software approach
avoids all of these problems by using proven separation between virtual
machines and by ensuring that the virtualization software itself runs
as an application, unable to circumvent the security policies of the
separation kernel.
The Broadest Guest Operating System Ecosystem
In the IT world, Padded Cell Secure Hypervisor supports general purpose
desktop and server operating systems such as Solaris, Red Hat Linux,
BSD, and Windows. In the embedded world, Padded Cell Secure Hypervisor
runs guest embedded operating systems such as INTEGRITY, VxWorks®,
and Linux. Padded Cell Secure Hypervisor takes advantage of the latest
hardware virtualization support, including Intel® vPro™ technology,
to provide optimal virtualization performance without sacrificing security. "Intel
vPro processor technology resolves key concerns around security with
such features as Intel Virtualization Technology and Intel Trusted
Execution Technology that are finding broad acceptance among developers
of embedded, mobile and desktop systems," said Gregory Bryant,
vice president, Digital Enterprise Group and general manager, Digital
Office Platform Division, Intel. "Taking advantage of the capabilities
of Intel vPro processor technology, Green Hills Software is able to
enhance the security capabilities of its INTEGRITY
PC™."
INTEGRITY PC Technology
Green Hills Software’s INTEGRITY PC is a software platform designed
for the military, intelligence, financial, medical, and other critical
infrastructure communities where PC users must manage and protect high
value information. INTEGRITY PC is based on the safety and security-certified
INTEGRITY real-time operating system and Padded Cell Secure Hypervisor.
The platform enables systems designers to build the most security-critical
applications and run them alongside familiar operating environments,
saving cost, size, weight, and power over multiple hardware platforms.
Therefore, even as it improves flexibility and security for PC users,
INTEGRITY PC is reducing energy use and CO2 emissions.
Availability
The Padded Cell Secure Hypervisor runs on commercial, off-the-shelf computing
platforms. For general purpose enterprise availability information,
please contact: info@integrityglobalsecurity.com.
For special purpose and embedded availability information, please contact: virtual-info@ghs.com
About Green Hills Software
Founded in 1982, Green Hills Software, Inc. is the technology leader
in device software optimization (DSO) and real-time operating systems
(RTOS) for 32- and 64-bit embedded systems. Our royalty-free INTEGRITY® and velOSity™ real-time
operating systems, µ-velOSity™ microkernel,
compilers, MULTI® and AdaMULTI™ integrated development environments,
DoubleCheck™ integrated static analyzer and TimeMachine™ tool
suite offer a complete development solution that addresses both deeply
embedded and high-reliability applications. Green Hills Software is
headquartered in Santa Barbara, CA, with European headquarters in the
United Kingdom. Visit Green Hills Software on the web at www.ghs.com.
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