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After taking a close look at Microsoft’s embarrassingly lightweight Strategic Technology Protection Program, which, however, provides a welcome shift of emphasis for the company, it’s time to return to the security features in Microsoft’s upcoming .NET framework. This week, I’ll take a brief look at the framework’s type safety. Don’t confuse this type safety with data type-verification in most programming languages. In a .NET security context, type safe means preventing programs from accessing memory outside the bounds of an object’s public properties.

Type-safe code accesses only the memory locations it is authorized to access. For example, type-safe code cannot directly read values from another object’s private fields or code areas. It accesses types only in well-defined, allowable ways, thereby circumventing certain popular overrun security breaches. Read more »