Enhancing Java Security with History Based Access Control

Java language has become very popular in the last few years. Due to its portability, Java applications are adopted in distributed environment, where heterogeneous resources cooperate. In this context, security is a fundamental issue, because each resource could execute applications that have been developed by possibly unknown third parties. This paper recalls several solutions for improving the Java native security support. In particular, it discusses an approach for history based access control of Java applications. This paper also describes the application of this solution to two common use cases: grid computing and mobile devices (such as mobile phones or PDAs).