US armstech mammoth Raytheon has announced that its "government insider threat management solution" for information security will be powered by Linux. Penguin-inside crypto modules to be used in Raytheon's mole-buster tech have now passed tough federal security validation, apparently.

The insider-threat detector gear in question is Raytheon's SureView™, designed to root out the whole spectrum of security no-nos from "accidental data leaks" through "well-intentioned but inappropriate policy violations" to "deliberate theft of data". SureView™ monitors every network sparrow that falls, looking automatically for “Leading Indicator” actions, "such as a screen capture that has been encrypted and saved to a USB drive", for instance.

As part of all this, the SureView™ network-watching net needs to be secure itself. Most of it has already passed Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2 level 1, says Raytheon. Now, with the final Linux crypto module also FIPS compliant, SureView™ is ready to start sniffing out traitors, whistleblowers, leakers and/or bonehead users across the federal government.

"The accreditation of the FIPS Linux cryptographic module certifies that Raytheon's industry-leading enterprise monitoring and investigation tools are fully compliant with the highest security standards," says Steve Hawkins, info-sec veep at Raytheon.

"This certification meets Department of Defense regulations for cryptographic modules for certain information assurance applications. Achieving this certification aligns with Raytheon's ongoing commitment to provide our customers with the best security, assurance and dependability."

Corsec Security consultants assisted with the FIPS certification. ®

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