Patent ID: 8011008

Claim:
In a computing environment, a method of performing security sensitive operations, the method performed by executing computer executable instructions within a computing system, the method comprising: executing security agnostic code wherein the security agnostic code is identified as not having authorization to perform a security sensitive operation and wherein executing the security agnostic code comprises calling code identified as security safe critical code; in response to the security agnostic code calling the security safe critical code, executing the security safe critical code, wherein the security safe critical code comprises functionality for performing validity checks, and wherein executing the security safe critical code comprises performing an validity check for the security agnostic code and when the security agnostic code passes the validity check, calling code identified as security critical code; determining that each of a set of inheritance rules governing types and methods of each of the security agnostic code, the security safe critical code, and the security critical code are correctly followed, the inheritance rules defining a set of allowed and disallowed inheritance patterns for the types and methods of each of the security agnostic code, the security safe critical code, and the security critical code; and in response to the security safe critical code calling the security critical code, executing the security critical code, wherein the security critical code is authorized to perform the security sensitive operation.