A Safety-Oriented Platform for Web Applications

The Web browser has become the dominant interface to a broad range of applications, including online banking, Web-based email, digital media delivery, gaming, and ecommerce services. Early Web browsers provided simple access to static hypertext documents. In contrast, modern browsers serve as de facto operating systems that must manage dynamic and potentially malicious applications. Unfortunately, browsers have not properly adapted to their new role. As a consequence, they fail to provide adequate isolation across applications, exposing both users and Web services to attack. This paper describes the architecture and implementation of the Tahoma Web browsing system. Key to Tahoma is the browser operating system (BOS), a new trusted software layer on which Web browsers execute. The benefits of this architecture are threefold. First, the BOS runs the clientside component of each Web application (e.g., on-line banking, Web mail) in its own virtual machine. This provides strong isolation ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2006
• Where: SP
• Authors: Richard S. Cox, Steven D. Gribble, Henry M. Levy, Jacob Gorm Hansen
• Keywords: Security Privacy, SP 2006, Tahoma Web, Web Applications, Web Browsers