Sandboxing in a mobile operating system
2025-familiarisation-se-q06 · Short Answer · 3 marks
Source: NESA 2025 HSC Software Engineering Familiarisation Q6
Question
A new operating system is to be developed for a mobile phone. The operating system needs to allow users to install a variety of third-party applications such as social media applications and games on the phone.
Discuss the use of sandboxing in this operating system.
Reveal answer
Sandboxing would run each third-party application in a restricted environment. This limits what the app can access, such as files, sensors, contacts and other apps, unless permission is granted. If an app is malicious or has a vulnerability, the sandbox reduces the chance that it can affect the whole phone or steal data from other apps.
Marking rubric
| Marks | Description |
|---|---|
| 3 | Discusses sandboxing in the mobile operating system context. |
| 2 | Describes how sandboxing restricts app behaviour. |
| 1 | Provides some relevant information about sandboxing. |
Explanation
Sandboxing supports security by design by isolating apps and restricting their access to system resources and user data.
Metadata
- Submitter
- Seed data
- Created
- 2026-05-02
- Status
- published
- Syllabus
- y12-secure-security-by-design
- Tags
- sandboxing operating systems mobile apps security by design