The sandbox metaphor derives from the concept of a child's sandbox—a play area where children can build, destroy, and experiment without causing any real-world damage.
[2] A sandbox typically provides a tightly controlled set of resources for guest programs to run in, such as storage and memory scratch space.
Network access, the ability to inspect the host system, or read from input devices are usually disallowed or heavily restricted.
In the sense of providing a highly controlled environment, sandboxes may be seen as a specific example of virtualization.
Sandboxing is frequently used to test unverified programs that may contain a virus or other malicious code without allowing the software to harm the host device.