Comments on the creation of secure operating systems

The predominant general classes of problems that impact secure operating systems for NSI or Military-type environments are reviewed, and research results that can be directed toward solving those problems in a multiuser, multilevel-security virtual system are cited. The subject is developed under the following topics: perspective, internal protection mechanisms, major threats to a military security system, traditional approaches to achieving computer system security, and an approach to the overall problem of creating secure operating systems. It is concluded that although many technical issues remain to be resolved and the production of a secure operating system is still expensive, the state of the art of system design makes such a project feasible and puts a class of verifiably secure virtual systems within grasp