SAN JOSÉ, Calif., Nov. 18, 2008 – LynuxWorks™, Inc., a world leader in the embedded software market, today announced immediate availability of LynxSecure 2.0, a next-generation separation kernel and embedded hypervisor for high assurance systems. LynxSecure provides a standards-based, secure, multi-domain computational platform that serves as a trusted foundation for applications with low, medium and high assurance requirements that are all running concurrently on a single system. It allows legacy applications to run unmodified, enabling systems to be modernized with increased information sharing and security.
LynxSecure was designed from the ground up to minimize lifecycle costs (initial and tech refresh) of high assurance evaluation, certification and accreditation by using automated tools and the correct-by-construction methodology for formal methods and artifacts. Automation provides dramatic schedule, cost and risk advantages over traditional brute force approaches to formal methods used by other embedded software developers. LynxSecure’s use of automated formal methods allows technology insertions to occur seamlessly, which significantly reduces the time to achieve a Common Criteria Evaluation Assurance Level 7 (EAL-7) evaluation and subsequent re-evaluations.
“LynxSecure has had strong market acceptance,” said Steve Blackman, director of business development at LynuxWorks. “Major Army and Navy programs are currently developing applications with LynxSecure and they will be integrating the software into their final solutions. Evaluation, certification and accreditation activities are part of those program’s schedules.”
LynxSecure 2.0 virtualizes the underlying hardware to enable multiple, heterogeneous operating systems (OS) to coexist on the same platform, making it the ideal platform for today and tomorrow’s advanced hardware architectures. LynxSecure is optimized to take full advantage of Intel’s Virtualization technology.
“Other solutions have provided emulation layers to run guest operating systems, but this slows system performance, which is unacceptable to our customers,” says Arun Subbarao, vice president of engineering at LynuxWorks. “LynxSecure is a Type-1 hypervisor, running directly on system hardware and providing platform virtualization to the guest OS. This architecture provides near-native performance for the guest OS and superior security, since LynxSecure has complete control of the hardware.”
Traditional systems require a separate processor and system, one for each deployed OS environment and supported applications. The ability of LynxSecure to consolidate heterogeneous OS environments enables developers to engage a diverse array of applications on a single processor, which reduces hardware costs and allows for easier reuse of legacy software. In addition, LynxSecure supports a lightweight Application Run-Time environment that can be used for creating secure applications without an intervening OS which can be evaluated to the required assurance level up to EAL-7.
LynxSecure, with its extremely small code size, maintains hard real-time characteristics and determinism for real-time applications. The software is the first separation kernel & hypervisor to bring multi-core processor support to the high assurance world, providing scalability from deeply embedded applications up to workstations and servers.
“LynxSecure 2.0 offers key features that satisfy advanced security and virtualization needs for our customers,” said Gurjot Singh, CEO, LynuxWorks. “It is a significant technology leap for the creation of multi-domain secure systems, such as those commonly found in the military and other high-security industries, including medical, financial services and industrial control.”
LynxSecure is designed to run on any 32-bit or 64-bit processor with a memory management unit (MMU) and provides 100% application binary compatibility between a standalone OS and its virtualized version. Like all LynuxWorks’ products, LynxSecure is based on open standards, but it also offers the highest real-time, safety and security capabilities, conforming to the MILS standard and certifiable to DO-178B level A.
Other key features in LynxSecure 2.0 include:
Multiprocessing, which enables developers to take advantage of the latest, multi-core processor designs
Security enhancements for policy enforcement, including controlled communication between guest operating systems
Allows guests that need to execute under significantly different security policies to co-exist on the same processor
Support for open standards: POSIX, Linux ABI, ARINC
A configuration tool for platform configuration and security policy definition
Virtual networking between guest operating systems
About LynuxWorks
LynuxWorks, a world leader in the embedded software market, is committed to providing open and reliable real-time operating systems (RTOS) and software tools to embedded developers. The company’s LynxOS family of operating systems offers open standards with the highest level of safety and security features, enabling many mission-critical systems in defense, avionics and other industries. Additionally, LynuxWorks’ BlueCat Linux provides the features and support of embedded Linux for companies wanting to use open source technology for their embedded applications. The Eclipse-based Luminosity IDE gives a powerful and consistent development system across all LynuxWorks operating systems. Since it was established in 1988, LynuxWorks has created technology that has been successfully deployed in thousands of designs and millions of products made by leading communications, avionics, aerospace/defense, and consumer electronics companies. LynuxWorks’ headquarters are located in San José, CA. Visit www.lynuxworks.com