Policy-Enforced Linking of Untrusted Components (Extended Abstract)

A method of secure linking (SL), a flexible way of allowing software component users to specify their security policy at link time, is discussed. The system gives the users more control than type-checking or traditional digital signing. The SL mechanism does not prevent bugs, but it gives the software provider and the software consumer finer-grain control of the meaning of certificates they use. With the SL framework, a code consumer can establish a linking policy to protect itself from malicious code from outside. The policy can include certain properties such as software component names, and application-specific correctness properties which are useful for system safety.