We are excited to announce that ThinLinc will soon support being installed on Linux systems running in FIPS mode! FIPS, short for Federal Information Processing Standard, is a set of stringent and regularly updated criteria for cryptographic software algorithms. This standard is developed and issued by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
ThinLinc’s upcoming support for systems in FIPS mode will extend across all supported Linux distributions, delivering a consistent user experience regardless of your chosen platform. This includes major distributions such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Ubuntu, Fedora, and SUSE Linux Enterprise, all of which offer options to run in FIPS mode.
By using FIPS mode on your Linux system, you ensure that the employed cryptography methods have been assessed by an external authority and meet certain quality standards. As a result, you aren’t bound to rely solely on the claims of software developers.
This update allows ThinLinc to be seamlessly installed on systems with FIPS mode enabled. Achieving this for ThinLinc 4.17.0 required addressing a few instances where the MD5 cryptographic algorithm was used for non-critical operations. FIPS criteria rate this algorithm insecure, and switching to newer algorithms is good practice no matter the use case.
ThinLinc is aligning with the broader trend in software development toward enhancing cryptographic security. We hope that this signals to our community and users that ThinLinc remains a safe and secure choice.
Stay tuned for the upcoming release of ThinLinc 4.17.0! Discuss in our community.