Microsoft Windows Platform Products Awarded

HostReview.com
Wednesday, December 14, 2005; 08:33 AM

Microsoft Corp. today announced that a wide range of Microsoft® Windows® platform products have been awarded Common Criteria (CC) Evaluation Assurance Level (EAL) 4 + Augmented with ALC_FLR.3 certification. Issued by the National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP), CC certification is an international standard for ensuring that IT products conform to stringent security requirements.

“CC certification of these Windows platform products, which includes evaluation of the broadest set of real-world scenarios of any operating system platform today, underscores our deep and ongoing commitment to the Common Criteria process,” Lipner said.

The independent certification of Microsoft’s end-to-end platform products included the evaluation of more than 20 real-world scenarios or “workloads” by Science Applications International Corp.’s (SAIC’s) accredited Common Criteria testing lab. SAIC adheres to strict standards, and conducts rigorous and exhaustive testing at the source-code level to determine certifications.

“The assurance reflected in this level of Common Criteria certification, combined with Microsoft’s ongoing work to effectively address security through efforts such as the Security Development Lifecycle, provide encouraging evidence of Microsoft’s progress on security and the viability of the Windows platform in security-critical computing scenarios,” said Franchina Luisa, general manager of the High Institute for Communications and Information Technology in Italy.

In November 2005, Microsoft launched new versions of three key products — Microsoft Visual Studio® 2005, Microsoft SQL Server™ 2005, and Microsoft BizTalk® Server 2006 Beta 2 — that became the first Microsoft products to have undergone the complete SDL process from inception to release.

“Microsoft continues to build on its Trustworthy Computing progress by attaining Common Criteria certification for Windows platform products,” said Charles Kolodgy, research director of Security Products at IDC.

The Windows platform product certifications join previous EAL 4 certifications for Exchange Server 2003, Internet Security and Acceleration Server (ISA Server) 2004, Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional, and Microsoft Windows 2000 Server and Advanced Server.