Chapter 4. Security Policies

 

PORTIA: Of a strange nature is the suit you follow; Yet in such rule that the Venetian law Cannot impugn you as you do proceed. [To Antonio.] You stand within his danger, do you not?

 
 --The Merchant of Venice, IV, i, 177–180.

A security policy defines “secure” for a system or a set of systems. Security policies can be informal or highly mathematical in nature. After defining a security policy precisely, we expand on the nature of “trust” and its relationship to security policies. We also discuss different types of policy models.

Security Policies

Consider a computer system to be a finite-state automaton with a set of transition functions that change state. Then:

  • Definition 4–1A security policy is a statement that partitions ...

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