-: Large organizations like the Federal Government
process a lot of sensitive information,
and they want to ensure that their operating systems
are truly trusted.
To provide organizations with a level of assurance,
the classification of a Trusted Operating System
was created.
A Trusted Operating System is any operating system
that meets the requirements set forth by the government
and it contains multilevel security.
For the Security+ exam,
you don't need to learn the specific requirements,
but you should know that the government
has a long list of them.
What operating systems meet the criteria
to be called a Trusted Operating System?
Well, every version of Windows since Windows 7
is considered a Trusted Operating System.
This includes Windows 8, Windows 10,
Windows Server 2012, and Windows Server 2016.
Also, every version of Mac OS X since version 10.6
is classified as a Trusted Operating System.
If you're using FreeBSD,
if you load the TrustedBSD extensions,
this is also considered trusted,
as well as Red Hat Enterprise Server.
There are other Trusted Operating Systems out there as well,
but those are much less popular than the ones listed here.
To remain a Trusted Operating System,
the software manufacturer must routinely provide
patches and updates to the software
in order to maintain its security.
This is one of the reasons that both Mac and Windows
provide frequent security updates,
to patch any vulnerabilities that have been discovered.
Prior to installing any patches or updates though,
you should first verify the current version
and build of your operating system.
This is done by going to the system information program
within your computer.
For a Windows machine,
you simply run the msinfo32.exe program
from the Command Prompt
and it'll display the exact version
and build of the software.
In this example, the computer is running Windows 10,
version 10.0.10240.
This contains all the patches and updates
to the software code through Build 10240.