VisualWorks White Paper: The Cincom VisualWorks Security Library
- To download a PDF version of this white paper, click here.
Software developers are often required to add security features to their software to augment network security. The purpose of this extra security is to protect the integrity and ensure the privacy of sensitive data on a level that security applications such as firewalls on the network perimeter cannot. Not all data can be locked away. Sometimes it must be subject to public access, or transported across the internet via e-mail or web transactions. In these cases, the data is susceptible to access and tampering by unauthorized individuals. In addition, data within the protected confines of the enterprise is always vulnerable to internal access by unauthorized users misusing administrative privileges.
Encryption is an ideal method to protect confidentiality of data, no matter where it is stored or transported. The process converts data into an unreadable format, and then decrypts data by converting it back to the original readable data, only when accessed by an authorized user.
A wide range of practical cryptography and related security components have been implemented within VisualWorks to enable developers to quickly and easily incorporate a variety of security capabilities into their applications.