microsoft silverlight plug in download free

Because of this, Silverlight can’t connect to a database directly, so you must create a layer of services that provide access to your data and business logic. Unlike Windows Forms, Silverlight operates within the browser sandbox and has a reduced set of capabilities, so it provides an increased degree of security (though in Silverlight 4, users can identify certain applications as trusted and promote the programs’ privileges to allow COM interop). However, because all the UI code runs on client computers, you can’t trust it anymore. In many ways, this is one of Silverlight’s greatest advantages, as it removes many of the problems caused by the stateless nature of Web applications. So Silverlight development arguably has more in common with Windows Forms or WPF than with ASP.NET. Unlike ASP.NET, Silverlight is a client-side technology, so it runs on users’ computers. Silverlight is a cross-browser plug-in that leverages many of the graphical concepts pioneered by Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), enabling Web developers to create rich user experiences far beyond what’s possible with only HTML and JavaScript. I’ll also discuss how you can prevent unwanted access to your Silverlight application files. As this is a Rich Internet Application (RIA), the majority of concepts described in this article apply equally to Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) or other RIA approaches.

I will focus on the first two, authentication and authorization, in the context of a Silverlight application. We usually do this with a user name and password.Īuthorization is the process of confirming that a user, once authenticated, actually has the appropriate permissions to perform a particular action or access a particular resource.Īudit is the act of maintaining a record of activity such that actions and requests made upon a system can’t be denied by the user. When planning security for an application, it’s useful to think of three A’s: authentication, authorization and audit.Īuthentication is the act of confirming that users are who they claim to be. Instead, the goal of the article is to “connect the dots” and show how you can exploit these concepts to secure your applications. For this reason, I won’t explore these topics in great technical depth. This article touches on many technical concepts that you’ll find covered in more detail elsewhere (including this magazine). In particular, I’ll focus on the new challenges programmers face when trying to secure Silverlight applications, and I’ll consider where development teams should focus their resources. In this article, I’ll explore some of the themes that arise in those discussions. In my role as a consultant with Microsoft Services, I have regular discussions with customers and partners about application security. Volume 25 Number 05 Silverlight Security - Securing Your Silverlight Applications

Microsoft silverlight plug in download free