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Using Reflection as a Mechanism for Enforcing Security Policies in Mobile Code

Lookup NU author(s): Ian Welch, Dr Robert Stroud

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Abstract

Several authors have proposed using code modification as a technique for enforcing security policies such as resource limits, access controls, and network information flows. However, these approaches are typically ad hoc and are implemented without a high level abstract framework for code modification. We propose using reflection as a mechanism for implementing code modifications within an abstract framework based on the semantics of the underlying programming language. We have developed a reflective version of Java called Kava that uses byte-code rewriting techniques to insert pre-defined hooks into Java class files at load time. This makes it possible to specify and implement security policies for mobile code in a more abstract and flexible way. Our mechanism could be used as a more principled way of enforcing some of the existing security policies described in the literature. The advantages of our approach over related work (SASI, JRes, etc.) are that we can guarantee that our security mechanisms cannot be bypassed, a property we call strong non-bypassability, and that our approach provides the high level abstractions needed to build useful security policies.


Publication metadata

Author(s): Welch I, Stroud RJ

Publication type: Report

Publication status: Published

Series Title: Department of Computing Science Technical Report Series

Year: 2000

Pages: 11

Print publication date: 01/01/2000

Source Publication Date: 2000

Report Number: 705

Institution: Department of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne

Place Published: Newcastle upon Tyne

URL: http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/publications/trs/papers/705.pdf


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