Reference monitor

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In operating systems architecture, a reference monitor is a tamperproof, always-used, and small enough to be fully-tested and analyzed module that controls all software access to data objects or devices. The reference monitor verifies the nature of the request against a table of allowable access types for each process on the system. For example, Windows 3.x and 9.x operating systems were not built with a reference monitor, whereas the Windows NT line, which also includes Windows 2000 and Windows XP, was designed with an entirely different architecture and does contain one.

The Reference Monitor concept was introduced in the Computer Security Technology Planning Study (Oct, 1972) by James Anderson & Co.

Systems evaluated at B2 and above by the TCSEC must enforce the reference monitor concept.

[edit] See also

• Security kernel