The NSA is getting into open source with the System Integrity Management Platform (SIMP), a cybersecurity tool for the masses.
From the National Security Agency, the governmental organization that brought you PRISM and the arsenal of surveillance tools leaked in the Snowden files comes SIMP, a Linux framework designed to provide a combination of security compliance and operational flexibility. The ultimate goal of the project is to provide a complete management environment focused on compliance with the SCAP Security Guide Project best practices.
SIMP is written in Ruby, leverages Puppet modules for network deployment and infrastructure, and currently supports Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOS operating systems.
According to the NSA, SIMP should form part of a layered “defense-in-depth” approach to information security.
“Though it is fully capable out of the box, the intent of SIMP is to be molded to your target environment in such a way that deviations are easily identifiable to both Operations Teams and Security Officers,” the project’s description states.
The NSA’s open-source team is handling issue tracking for SIMP in Atlassian’s JIRA and using a HipChat chat room for communication. SIMP’s source code, complete with its full range of Puppet modules, is available here.
Top 5 projects trending on GitHub this week
#1: Free Code Camp, the organization’s open-source MEAN stack Web application.
#2: Material Design Lite was last week’s featured GitHub project.
#3: React UI Builder, a visual builder of React JavaScript components for Web applications.
#4: Echochamber.js, a third-party script to add simple comment forms to blog posts or websites.
#5: Professor Frisby’s Mostly Adequate Guide to Functional Programming. The picture really says it all.
