Anita K. Jones
Abstract
Security policies define who may use what information in a computer system. Protection mechanisms are built into a system to enforce security policies. In most systems, however, it is quite unclear what policies a mechanism can or does enforce.
This paper defines security policies and protection mechanisms precisely and bridges the gap between them with the concept of soundness: whether a protection mechanism enforces a policy. Different sound protection mechanisms for the same policy can then be compared. We also show that the “union” of mechanisms for the same program produces a more “complete” mechanism. Although a “maximal” mechanism exists, it cannot necessarily be constructed.
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Index Terms
- The enforcement of security policies for computation
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The enforcement of security policies for computation
SOSP '75: Proceedings of the fifth ACM symposium on Operating systems principlesSecurity policies define who may use what information in a computer system. Protection mechanisms are built into a system to enforce security policies. In most systems, however, it is quite unclear what policies a mechanism can or does enforce.
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