How secure is Solaris 2?
Solaris 2 is relatively secure, considering that it is a general-purpose, time-sharing, multi-user operating system. Such systems are inherently full of compromises. Solaris 2 is a version of Unix which was not designed for security. However, Sun actively fixes security holes. Additionally, there are facilities that can increase the security of Solaris (see section 3). Specifically, Solaris has been designed to meet the TCSEC (Orange Book C2) level for security. According to Sun, Solaris 2.4SE is ITSEC E2/F-C2-certified. Solaris 2.6 is currently undergoing both the ITSEC E3/F-C2 and TCSEC C2 certification processes. Current information can be found at http://www.sun.com/solaris/2.6/ds-security.html. In order to build a system that actually meets the evaluation there are a number of patches that must be installed. A bundle of the exact patches used for the evaluation can be obtained directly from Sun. For those that need more security than provided by C2 Sun provides a version of Solari
