...
| Wiki Markup |
|---|
Coding errors cause the majority of software vulnerabilities. For example, 64 percent of the nearly 2,500 vulnerabilities in the National Vulnerability Database in 2004 were caused by programming errors \[[Heffley 2004|AA. Bibliography#HeffleyReferences#Heffley 2004]\]. |
Java is a relatively secure language. There is no explicit pointer manipulation; array and string bounds are automatically checked; attempts at referencing a null pointer are trapped; the arithmetic operations are well defined and platform independent, as are the type conversions. The built-in bytecode verifier ensures that these checks are always in place. Moreover, Java provides comprehensive, fine-grained security mechanisms that can control access to individual files, sockets, and other sensitive resources. To take advantage of the security mechanisms, the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) must have a security manager in place. This is an ordinary Java object of class java.lang.SecurityManager (or a subclass) that can be put in place programmatically but is more usually specified via a command line argument.
...