A path context model for addressing security in potentially non-secure environments

Many commercial computer environments have established architectures and followed directions which give rise to circumstances which are classified as non-secure in terms of traditional logical security standards. To accommodate increasing demands for security in such environments, a research project was undertaken to analyse them and propose solutions. By using context-sensitive grammars and analysing the structure of computer security models, an alternative was originated. The model is able to accommodate a wide variety of computer environments, accommodates secure environment concepts as a special case and forms a basis for automatic security evaluation and profile generation. A number of case studies illustrate the use of this model in different circumstances including wide area networks, local area networks, multiple executions in single-address spaces and multi domain resource access.