Computer security policy
A computer security policy defines the goals and elements of an organization's computer systems. The definition can be highly formal or informal. Security policies are enforced by organizational policies or security mechanisms. A technical implementation defines whether a computer system is secure or insecure. These formal policy models can be categorized into the core security principles of confidentiality, integrity, and availability. For example, the Bell-LaPadula model is a confidentiality policy model, whereas the Biba model is an integrity policy model.
01Formal description
If a system is regarded as a finite-state automaton with a set of transitions (operations) that change the system's state, then a security policy can be seen as a statement that partitions these states into authorized and unauthorized ones.
Given this simple definition, one can define a secure system as one that starts in an authorized state and will never enter an unauthorized state.
02Formal policy models
- Confidentiality policy model
- Integrity policies model
- Hybrid policy model
- Chinese wall (Also known as Brewer and Nash model)
03Policy languages
To represent a concrete policy, especially for automated enforcement of it, a language representation is needed. There exist a lot of application-specific languages that are closely coupled with the security mechanisms that enforce the policy in that application.
Compared with this abstract policy languages, e.g., the Domain Type Enforcement-Language, is independent of the concrete mechanism.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Computer security policy”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Fathomly is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Wikimedia Foundation. Spotted a problem? Tell us.
