A system and method are provided for restricting various operations in a file system based on security contexts. An object security context including permissible roles and defining a set of access permissions associated with each of the permissible roles is assigned to a file system object. A user security context is assigned to a user based on authentication information from the user, and the user security context identifies a user role for the user. An executable security context is assigned to an executable program. When the user has launched the executable program, a process is created and assigned the user security context and the executable security context. Responsive to the process attempting to access the file system object, at least one of the user security context and executable security context is verified against the object security context to determine if the attempted access should be allowed.