Inside Java™ 2 Platform Security: Architecture, API Design, and Implementation, Second Edition

3.2. Overview of the Java 2 Security Architecture

The security architecture introduced in the Java 2 platform uses a security policy to decide which individual access permissions are granted to running code. These permissions are based on the code’s characteristics, such as who is running the code, where it is coming from, whether it is digitally signed, and if so by whom. Attempts to access protected resources invoke security checks that compare the granted permissions with the ones needed for the attempted access. If a security policy is not explicitly given, the default policy is the classic sandbox policy as implemented in JDK 1.0 and JDK 1.1. The various caveats, refinements, and exceptions to this model are discussed in later chapters. ...