A high-security operating system designed for top-notch industries

When you think about it ensuring security in a computer system is all about fixing the breaches in the programs you use the most. The best way to protect your system against external threats is either to be able to recognize them (that’s the purpose of an ant-virus) or to make the breach useless (early Mac users will know what I’m talking about).

A decade ago while Apple wasn’t the marketing success it is today, informatics threats were almost absent for Mac users. Computers and devices running Mac OS were so few that most of the virus programmers were rather developing their noxious programs for Windows operating systems. As a matter of fact, one could browse the internet safely without any antivirus from a Mac computer and Apple’s operating systems were in itself a safety warranty.

Recently, Eugene Kasperky from the Kasperky anti-virus company revealed a project that is undoubtedly inspired of early Mac users’ experience of IT security. On his blog, Eugene Kaspersky stated his company was working on developing a new operating system. It is designed to protect industrial firms’ crucial information systems and particularly industrial control systems. According to Kaspersky, the OS will not allow “executing third-party code, or braking into the system or running unauthorised applications”.

Although standards exist when it comes to IT systems for infrastructures like nuclear, water or power plant, Kaspersky explains the need for a state of the art OS exists.  Such systems are “always on” says Kaspersky on his blog, “many companies often simply don’t bother to update industrial control systems at all”. Having identified the market, Kaspersky could very well become a new reference for industrial security with it new OS. But the hardest part of the work remains to be done.