Dictionary of Information Security

Their correct operation is essential to the protection

of the data on the system.

protection philosophy informal description of the overall

design of a system that delineates each of the pro-

tection mechanisms employed. A combination,

appropriate to the evaluation class, of formal and

informal techniques is used to show that the mecha-

nisms are adequate to enforce the security policy.

protection ring one of a hierarchy of privileged modes of

a system that gives certain access rights to user pro-

grams and processes authorized to operate in a given

mode.This term is now commonly applied to oper-

ating modes of the Intel Pentium processor, and the

Windows NT and 2000 operating systems, although

the later usage may not be fully consistent with ear-

lier definitions. ...