Secure system installation and configuration

Several factors are involved in the secure installation and configuration of AIX®.

Trusted Computing Base
The system administrator must determine how much trust can be given to a particular program. This determination includes considering the value of the information resources on the system in deciding how much trust is required for a program to be installed with privilege.
Trusted Execution
Trusted Execution (TE) refers to a collection of features that are used to verify the integrity of the system and implement advance security policies, which together can be used to enhance the trust level of the complete system.
Security Profile Evaluation Assurance Level 4+ and Labeled AIX Security and Evaluation Assurance Level 4+
System administrators can install a system with the Base AIX Security (BAS) and Evaluation Assurance Level 4+ (EAL4+) option or Labeled AIX Security (LAS) and Evaluation Assurance Level 4+ (EAL4+) during a base operating system (BOS) installation. A system with these options has restrictions on the software that is installed during BOS installation, plus network access is restricted.
Login control
You can change the login screen defaults for security reasons after a system installation.
Stack Execution Disable protection
Keeping computer systems secure forms an important aspect of an On Demand business. In today's world of highly networked environments, it has become an extreme challenge to ward off attacks from a variety of sources.
Managing X11 and CDE concerns
There are potential security vulnerabilities involved with the X11 X server and the Common Desktop Environment (CDE).
List of setuid/setgid programs
There are various setuid/setgid programs on an AIX system. You can remove these privileges on commands that do nto need to be available to regular users.

Parent topic: Securing the base operating system