Patent ID: 7707619

Claim:
A method in a computer system for troubleshooting a security policy by selectively excluding a program from the security policy, the method comprising: providing a security policy that includes rules indicating that when security events occur for programs whether to block or allow the security events; providing a relaxed security policy that includes rules indicating that when security events occur for programs whether to block or allow the security events, the relaxed security policy allowing at least one security event that would be blocked by the security policy; providing a problem list of programs to be excluded from the security policy by receiving from a user a request to temporarily add all programs currently running on the computer system to the problem list of programs; in response to receiving the request, identifying programs that are currently running on the computer system; and adding on a temporary basis the identified programs to the problem list of programs; when a security event for a program occurs, applying the security policy to the security event; when the applied security policy indicates to allow the security event, allowing the security event; and when the applied security policy indicates to block the security event, when the program is not in the provided problem list of programs, blocking the security event; and when the program is in the provided problem list of programs, applying the relaxed security policy to the security event to indicate whether to block or allow the security event such that at least one security event that is blocked by the security policy is allowed by the relaxed security policy; receiving from a user an indication that the troubleshooting indicates that a program in the problem list of programs has a conflict with the security policy; and switching the indicated program from being in the problem list of programs on a temporary basis to a non-temporary basis; and automatically removing the added programs from the problem list of programs when a certain criterion occurs except for any program that has been switched to being in the problem list of programs on a non-temporary basis.