What is Sandbox (Security)?

Within a cybersecurity context, a sandbox is a security mechanism that is designed to mitigate the potential impact of system failures and/or software vulnerabilities by allowing programs to run independently of and separately from the device/network's primary operating system. A sandbox is often used to test out new implementations and code bases or audit untested programs to ensure that they behave as planned prior to deployment. Sandboxes are also commonly deployed while testing the performance and features of a Virtual Machine (VM).