What Happens When You Change Existing ACL Assignments
If you assign a specific ACL to an element then later decide to remove the ACL assignment (that is, change it to Inherited), the element will inherit the ACL of the parent folder. The server displays (inherited) and the name of the ACL inherited from the parent folder. If you remove an ACL assignment from a top-level folder, the server uses Default. If you remove the List ACL assignment from a package, the server uses Default.
Important: The Default ACL identifies the Everybody group as an Allowed group and Anonymous as a denied group. This means that if an element has no ACL specifically assigned to it, then all users except unauthenticated ones can access the element. To avoid inadvertent access to resources, assign an appropriate replacement for the Default ACL.
If you change a folder's ACL assignment, it can change the ACL assignments of the elements contained within. Specifically, elements whose ACL assignment is Inherited will change to the folder's new ACL assignment. Elements that already have a specific ACL assignment will remain unchanged.