Secure Browsing Using Browser Operating System Virtualization

This paper presented the architecture of Browser Operating System. The BOS runs the client-side component of each Web application (e.g., on-line banking, Web mail) in its own virtual machine. The BOS lets Web publishers limit the scope of their Web applications by specifying which URLs and other resources their browsers are allowed to access. The BOS treats Web applications as first class objects that users explicitly install and manage. It defines a new trusted system layer, the browser operating system (BOS), on top of which browser implementations (such as Netscape or IE) can run. It provides explicit support for Web applications. A Web application consists of a browser instance, which includes a client-side browser executing dynamic Web content and code, and a Web service, which is a collection of Web sites with which the browser instance is permitted to communicate. It enforces isolation between Web applications, prohibiting one application from spying on or interfering with other applications or host resources. Each Web application has an associated browser instance that is sandboxed within a virtual machine.