Introduction of Qubes OS

Qubes OS is desktop operating system that aims to provide security through isolation. It provides different environments with the help of virtualization. There is no perfect bug-free desktop environment because desktop environment like windows are result of millions of lines of code and billions of software/hardware interactions. So one critical bug in these interactions is enough for malicious software to take control over the machine. In such condition proxy’s, VPN or any other method will not be able to save your system’s data and keep you safe from cyber attacks. Qubes helps the user to remain safe. Why Qubes ? In order to secure desktop, Qubes OS provides different environments for different tasks for eg it provides different environment for controlling hardware, for controlling software it provides with different environment, provides different environment for interacting user and different environment for connecting devices. So, that if one of the component gets compromised, the malicious software would get access to only data inside that environment so rest of the data will be saved because of the isolation between different environment. In Qubes, the isolation is provided in two dimensions hardware controllers can be isolated into function domains (e.g network domains, USB controller domains), whereas the user’s digital life is decided in domains with different levels of trust. For instance work domain (most trusted), shopping domain, random domain (less trusted). Each of those domains is run in separate virtual machine. Features :

1. Strong isolation: It helps to isolate software as if they were installed in separate machines. It uses PV or HVM virtualization techniques for isolation.
2. Multiple Operating Systems: It allows the user to use multiple operating machines eg Fedora, Debian or windows.
3. Controller Isolation: It helps the user to secure device handling through isolation of network cards and USB controllers.
4. U2F proxy: It helps to use two-factor authentication by using Qubes U2F proxy.
5. Open source: It is an open source environment i.e it allows the users to use, copy or modify Qubes OS and are encouraged to do so.
6. Disposable virtual machines: It creates disposable virtual machines. Disposable VMs are the lightweight VM that are created quickly and get disappear when closed. They are usually created to host single application like viewer, editor or the web browser.