Microsoft Corp. today announced that a wide range of Microsoft® Windows® platform products have been awarded Common Criteria (CC) Evaluation Assurance Level (EAL) 4 + Augmented with ALC_FLR.3 certification. Issued by the National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP), CC certification is an international standard for ensuring that IT products conform to stringent security requirements. Microsoft representatives Steve Lipner, senior director of security engineering strategy, and David Cross, director of program management of Windows security, accepted CC certification awards for six Windows products during Microsoft’s Security Summit East in Washington, D.C.

“CC certification of these Windows platform products, which includes evaluation of the broadest set of real-world scenarios of any operating system platform today, underscores our deep and ongoing commitment to the Common Criteria process,” Lipner said. “This milestone complements our ongoing advances in software quality through the Security Development Lifecycle process, ultimately benefiting any IT organization that is serious about security.”

The following products have earned CC EAL 4 + Augmented with ALC_FLR.3 certification from NIAP:

• Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003, Standard Edition (32-bit version) with Service Pack 1
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition (32-bit and 64-bit versions) with Service Pack 1
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition (32-bit and 64-bit versions) with Service Pack 1
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Certificate Server, Certificate Issuing and Management Components (CIMC) (Security Level 3 Protection Profile, Version 1.0)
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2
• Microsoft Windows XP Embedded with Service Pack 2

The Windows platform product certifications join previous EAL 4 certifications for Exchange Server 2003, Internet Security and Acceleration Server (ISA Server) 2004, Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional, and Microsoft Windows 2000 Server and Advanced Server.