TrustedBSD Mandatory Access Control (MAC) Framework
Mandatory access controls extend operating system access control
policy by allowing administrators to enforce additional constraints
on user and application behavior.
The TrustedBSD MAC Framework is a kernel programming interface
allowing loadable modules to augment the system security policy in
order to implement mandatory access control in a flexible manner.
The TrustedBSD MAC Framework first shipped in FreeBSD 5.0, with
significant functionality, quality, and performance enhancements in
later releases. Supported policy modules include rule-based file
system firewall support, TCP/UDP port access control lists,
inter-user process visibility controls, as well as classic mandatory
access control policies such as Multi-Level Security (MLS) with
compartments, and fixed- and floating-label Biba integrity policies.
Third party policy modules include cryptographic checksums on system
binaries, and SEBSD, a port of the NSA
FLASK/SELinux policy to FreeBSD. A number of commercial
FreeBSD-based products make use of the TrustedBSD MAC Framework to
locally modify the operating system security policy.
MAC Framework and general MAC user documentation and a number of
implementation papers may be found on the documentation page. A detailed discussion of
the architecture and industry adoption of the MAC Framework,
including use in FreeBSD and Apple's Mac OS X and iOS, may be found
in Robert Watson's PhD Dissertation, New
Approaches to Operating System Security Extensibility.
The TrustedBSD MAC Framework has also been present in Mac OS X
releases as of "Leopard", where it is used to implement Seatbelt
and other system security services; on the iPhone and iPad, the
MAC Framework is used for App sandboxing. This port of the MAC
Framework was performed initially as part of SEDarwin, which also included a port of
FLASK and SELinux to the Mac OS X platform. Other prominent
industry consumers of the MAC Framework include Juniper Networks
and McAfee (now Intel).
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