The Concept of Self-Defending Objects in the Development of Security Aware Applications

This paper presents a proposed extension to the object oriented paradigm, whereby software objects are not only responsible for the encapsulation of data, but are also aware of the sensitivity of that data. Those software objects which encapsulate sensitive information will actively defend both their sensitive data and their functionality. These self-defending objects use object level role based access control to secure those sensitive resources. Applying access control measures within self-defending objects will not only ensure that access controls are appropriate and non bypassable, but will also simplify the development of security aware applications