Java Security

Summary

Security is a multifaceted feature of the Java platform. There are a number of facilities within Java that allow you to write a Java application that implements a particular security policy, and this book will focus on each of those facilities in turn. Java-enabled browsers (including those like HotJava that are written in Java) are the ultimate proof of these features: these browsers have used the features of the Java platform to allow users to download and run code on their local systems without fear of viruses or other corruption.

But the security features of Java need not be limited to the protections afforded to Java applets running in a browser: they can be applied as necessary to your own Java applications. This is done most easily by incorporating those features into a framework designed to run Java applications within a specified sandbox. The ability to define and modify that framework is one of the primary examples of this book. In addition, the security package allows us to create applications that use generic security features—such as digital signatures—for many purposes aside from expanding the Java sandbox. This other use of the security package will also be a constant theme throughout this book.

In the next chapter, we’ll look into the security features of the Java language itself—the first set of security features that are available to any Java application.