Trusted Information Systems
Encyclopedia
Trusted Information Systems (TIS) was a computer security research and development company during the 1980s and 1990s, performing computer and communications (information) security research for organizations such as NSA, DARPA, ARL, AFRL, SPAWAR, and others.
TIS was founded in 1983 by NSA veteran Steve Walker, and at various times employed notable information security
experts including David Elliott Bell, Martha Branstad, John Pescatore, Marv Schaefer, Steve Crocker
, Marcus Ranum
, John Williams, Steve Lipner and Carl Ellison. TIS was headquartered in Glenwood, Maryland, in a surprisingly rural location; the company was started in Walker's garage on Shady Lane in Glenwood, MD. As the company grew, rather than move to Baltimore
or the Washington D.C. suburbs, a small office building was constructed on land next to Walker's new home on Rt 97.
TIS projects included Trusted Xenix, the first commercially available B2
operating system
; Trusted Mach, a research project that influenced DTOS and eventually SELinux; Domain and Type Enforcement (TE) which likewise influenced SELinux; the fwtk Firewall Toolkit (the first open source firewall software), which evolved into the Gauntlet Firewall, one of the first commercial firewall products; and a broad range of Internet Standards, including S/MIME
, SNMP
, DNS
, DNSSEC
, and many others.
The first whitehouse.gov e-mail server was located at their headquarters.
TIS's operating system work directly affected BSD/OS
, which the Gauntlet Firewall was based on, as well as Linux
, FreeBSD
, Darwin
, and others.
The company went public in 1998 and was acquired by Network Associates, which later became PGP
and McAfee
. The security research organization became NAI Labs and the Gauntlet engineering and development organization was folded into Network Associates' engineering and development.
NAI Labs went through a couple of branding changes which complemented Network Associates' branding efforts. In 2001 the name was changed to Network Associates Laboratories to better match the corporate identity. Then, in 2002-2003, there was a major branding initiative by Network Associates culminating in selection of the flag brand, McAfee. As a result, the security research organization became McAfee Research.
In 2003, SPARTA, Inc., an employee-owned company, acquired the Network Security branch of McAfee Research.
In 2005, SPARTA acquired the remaining branches of McAfee Research, which were organized into the Security Research Division (SRD) of the Information Systems Security Operation (ISSO).
In 2008, Cobham, plc, a British aerospace company, acquired SPARTA. There have been no organizational changes to SRD or ISSO that affect the security research.
On a separate path, TIS's primary commercial product, the Gauntlet Firewall, was acquired from McAfee by Secure Computing Corporation (SCC), and is being integrated into their next generation Sidewinder Firewall.
Several curious twists of fate had TIS acquired by NAI during its attempt to acquire PGP, which was also acquired by NAI; similarly, SCC and TIS were fierce business competitors at various points.
TIS was founded in 1983 by NSA veteran Steve Walker, and at various times employed notable information security
Information security
Information security means protecting information and information systems from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, perusal, inspection, recording or destruction....
experts including David Elliott Bell, Martha Branstad, John Pescatore, Marv Schaefer, Steve Crocker
Steve Crocker
Stephen D. Crocker is the inventor of the Request for Comments series, authoring the very first RFC and many more. He received his bachelor's degree and PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles. Crocker is chair of the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers,...
, Marcus Ranum
Marcus J. Ranum
Marcus J. Ranum is a computer and network security researcher and industry leader. He is credited with a number of innovations in firewalls, including building the first Internet email server for the whitehouse.gov domain, and intrusion detection systems...
, John Williams, Steve Lipner and Carl Ellison. TIS was headquartered in Glenwood, Maryland, in a surprisingly rural location; the company was started in Walker's garage on Shady Lane in Glenwood, MD. As the company grew, rather than move to Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
or the Washington D.C. suburbs, a small office building was constructed on land next to Walker's new home on Rt 97.
TIS projects included Trusted Xenix, the first commercially available B2
Security-evaluated operating system
In computing, security-evaluated operating systems have achieved certification from an external security-auditing organization, such as a B2 or A1 CSC-STD-001-83 "Department of Defense Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria" or Common Criteria certification.Note that meeting a given set of...
operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
; Trusted Mach, a research project that influenced DTOS and eventually SELinux; Domain and Type Enforcement (TE) which likewise influenced SELinux; the fwtk Firewall Toolkit (the first open source firewall software), which evolved into the Gauntlet Firewall, one of the first commercial firewall products; and a broad range of Internet Standards, including S/MIME
S/MIME
S/MIME is a standard for public key encryption and signing of MIME data. S/MIME is on an IETF standards track and defined in a number of documents, most importantly RFCs. S/MIME was originally developed by RSA Data Security Inc...
, SNMP
Simple Network Management Protocol
Simple Network Management Protocol is an "Internet-standard protocol for managing devices on IP networks. Devices that typically support SNMP include routers, switches, servers, workstations, printers, modem racks, and more." It is used mostly in network management systems to monitor...
, DNS
Domain name system
The Domain Name System is a hierarchical distributed naming system for computers, services, or any resource connected to the Internet or a private network. It associates various information with domain names assigned to each of the participating entities...
, DNSSEC
DNSSEC
The Domain Name System Security Extensions is a suite of Internet Engineering Task Force specifications for securing certain kinds of information provided by the Domain Name System as used on Internet Protocol networks...
, and many others.
The first whitehouse.gov e-mail server was located at their headquarters.
TIS's operating system work directly affected BSD/OS
BSD/OS
BSD/OS was a proprietary version of the BSD operating system developed by Berkeley Software Design, Inc. ....
, which the Gauntlet Firewall was based on, as well as Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
, FreeBSD
FreeBSD
FreeBSD is a free Unix-like operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via BSD UNIX. Although for legal reasons FreeBSD cannot be called “UNIX”, as the direct descendant of BSD UNIX , FreeBSD’s internals and system APIs are UNIX-compliant...
, Darwin
Darwin (operating system)
Darwin is an open source POSIX-compliant computer operating system released by Apple Inc. in 2000. It is composed of code developed by Apple, as well as code derived from NeXTSTEP, BSD, and other free software projects....
, and others.
The company went public in 1998 and was acquired by Network Associates, which later became PGP
Pretty Good Privacy
Pretty Good Privacy is a data encryption and decryption computer program that provides cryptographic privacy and authentication for data communication. PGP is often used for signing, encrypting and decrypting texts, E-mails, files, directories and whole disk partitions to increase the security...
and McAfee
McAfee
McAfee, Inc. is a computer security company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, USA. It markets software and services to home users, businesses and the public sector. On August 19, 2010, electronics company Intel agreed to purchase McAfee for $7.68 billion...
. The security research organization became NAI Labs and the Gauntlet engineering and development organization was folded into Network Associates' engineering and development.
NAI Labs went through a couple of branding changes which complemented Network Associates' branding efforts. In 2001 the name was changed to Network Associates Laboratories to better match the corporate identity. Then, in 2002-2003, there was a major branding initiative by Network Associates culminating in selection of the flag brand, McAfee. As a result, the security research organization became McAfee Research.
In 2003, SPARTA, Inc., an employee-owned company, acquired the Network Security branch of McAfee Research.
In 2005, SPARTA acquired the remaining branches of McAfee Research, which were organized into the Security Research Division (SRD) of the Information Systems Security Operation (ISSO).
In 2008, Cobham, plc, a British aerospace company, acquired SPARTA. There have been no organizational changes to SRD or ISSO that affect the security research.
On a separate path, TIS's primary commercial product, the Gauntlet Firewall, was acquired from McAfee by Secure Computing Corporation (SCC), and is being integrated into their next generation Sidewinder Firewall.
Several curious twists of fate had TIS acquired by NAI during its attempt to acquire PGP, which was also acquired by NAI; similarly, SCC and TIS were fierce business competitors at various points.