Army Buys Macs to Beef Up Security

agent_blue writes "The Army is integrating Macs into their IT network to thwart hack attempts. The Mac platform, they argue, is more secure because there are fewer attacks against OS X than Windows-based systems. 'Military procurement has long been driven by cost and availability of additional software--two measures where Macintosh computers have typically come up short against Windows-based PCs. Then there have been subtle but important barriers: For instance, Macintosh computers have long been incompatible with a security keycard-reading system known as Common Access Cards system, or CAC, which is heavily used by the military. The Army's Apple program, created [in 2005], is working to change that.'"

US Army used Macs in/since 1999 for servers

[lixlpixel]

http://www.serverwatch.com/news/article.php/201361 [serverwatch.com]

i always liked the idea...

from the article: "Until the Army's Web site was hacked in late June by a 19-year old Wisconsin man, the site had been using a Microsoft Windows NT-based Web server..." :)

Computer security specialists

[HangingChad]

The clear majority of the really high end computer security people I know are driving Macs. On the military side Army and Marines seem to be tinkering more with Linux. The Marines less so because of NMCI, but there was a demo of battlefield information system that was Linux based. Navy and Marines have pretty much locked themselves into Windows desktops managed by EDS on the administrative side. A move I believe will go down as one of the great defeats in Naval history, with casualties of 250 million American taxpayers.

Don't know about the Air Force but the few AF people I've met at conferences seemed pretty on the ball and struck me as Linux curious if not outright supporters.

Hell is a bit colder today

[eyebits]

About five years ago I was doing a training session/presentation for IT staff at an Army base where I was told that the Army would never use anything other than Windows. I made the mistake of referring to Linux, Mac OSX and open source software during the presentation which caused some folks in the room to get upset with me. I remember a comment about hell freezing over first. I guess hell is a bit colder today.

Re:How many times?

[mi]

Once you can lose [windows or *nix or Mac] systems, for all intents & purposes, the IT infrastructure in question is near useless.

This presumes, the systems are always used in sequence (links in a chain), rather than in parallel (say, like a fishing net). This presumption is false.

For example, if half of a unit's desktops have to be shut down due to a particular flaw (in design or in implementation — does not matter) in their OS getting exploited by the enemy (or for some other reason, such as simply heat), the other half of the unit can still function.

Re:one point of failure

[TeraCo]

You might be a good admin but your comprehension kind of blows. His ENTIRE POINT was that finding 'non sucky' admins (as you put it) is very difficult. People who are skilled to an enterprise level in multiple operating systems are extremely rare. (My previous enterprise that I worked in had about 3 or 4 such people across 40,000 staff total (and about 5,000 IT staff).