Extra Credit 3

Due: November 6, 2023
Points: 20

A company wishes to market a secure version of the Swiss Cheese Operating System (SCOS), known as much for its advanced user and database management features as for its security vulnerabilities. The company plans to build a virtual machine to run SCOS and run that virtual machine on a second system, the Somewhat Secure Operating System (SSOS). The marketing literature claims that the VM running SCOS provides total isolation, thereby eliminating any potential security problems.

1. Does this arrangement provide total isolation? If your answer is “no,” discuss what features the VM would need to include to provide total isolation or show why this arrangement cannot provide total isolation.
2. The literature states that “the VM mediates all accesses to real system resources, providing an impenetrable barrier to any attacker trying to break out of the SCOS and attack other copies of SCOS running on the SSOS.” Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Why? (If you would need more information in order to make a decision, state what information you would need and why.)

Matt Bishop Office: 2209 Watershed Sciences Phone: +1 (530) 752-8060 Email: mabishop@ucdavis.edu

ECS 235A, Computer and Information Security Version of October 24, 2023 at 11:10PM

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