Extensible security system and method for controlling access to objects in a computing environment

DETAILED DESCRIPTION The above-mentioned shortcomings, disadvantages and problems are addressed by the present invention that will be understood by reading and studying the following specification.
To solve these problems, the invention provides an extensible security system and method that provides for controlling objects beyond traditional access rights such as read, write, create and delete.
The methods and systems of the invention allow a system administrator or user application to dynamically create unique control rights.
According to the invention, access rights can be created that do not necessarily relate to any specific property of the object, but rather define how a user may control the object.
A novel object, referred to as a control access data structure, is defined for each unique control right and associates the control right with one or more objects of the computing environment.
In order to grant the access right to a trusted user, an improved access control entry (ACE) is defined which holds a unique identifier of the trusted user and a unique identifier of the control access data structure.