X.500

Following our participation in a Multilevel Secure X.500 Directory Server pilot sponsored by the U.S. Air Force’s Rome Laboratory in 1996-1997, Wang Government Services has undertaken further research and development into the creation of a Secure X.500 Border Directory Proxy Server that would enable the sharing of directory information among the U.S. and its allies; or between any other organizations that require limited, strictly controlled, secure sharing of direc- tory information. To achieve the secure “release” of internal directory information to the outside world, the Secure X.500 Border Directory Proxy Server would provide directory-specific firewall protection mechanisms that would filter and in some cases modify or delete (“sanitize”) specific directory information before release to ensure conformance of the released information with the defined releasability policy. In military/defense, intelligence, diplomatic, and similar communities, in addition to firewall protections, the Secure X.500 Border Directory Proxy Server could also act as a Trusted Guard, with the level of assurance required to maintain the mandatory separation between the “inside” and “outside” domains for everything except the controlled sharing of directory information according to a releasability policy strictly enforced by the Border Directory system. To provide the highest possible level of assurance, the Secure X.500 Border Directory Proxy Server would run on the Wang Government Services XTS-300TM Trusted Computer System, which has been evaluated at the Class B3 level by the National Computer Security Center (NCSC). The Secure X.500 Border Directory Proxy Server would integrate the existing X.500 filtering capabilities and trusted X.500 routing of Wang’s Defense Information Infrastructure (DII) Guard with additional filters that would collectively implement all potentially required directory firewall and Trusted Guard filtering mechanisms.