Flexible support for multiple access control policies

ABSTRACT

Although several access control policies can be devised for controlling access to information, all existing authorization models, and the corresponding enforcement mechanisms, are based on a specific policy (usually the closed policy). As a consequence, although different policy choices are possible in theory, in practice only a specific policy can actually be applied within a given system. In this paper, we present a unified framework that can enforce multiple access control policies within a single system. The framework is based on a language through which users can specify security policies to be enforced on specific accesses. The language allows the specification of both positive and negative authorizations and incorporates notions of authorization derivation, conflict resolution, and decision strategies. Different strategies may be applied to different users, groups, objects, or roles, based on the needs of the security policy. The overall result is a flexible and powerful, yet simple, framework that can easily capture many of the traditional access control policies as well as protection requirements that exist in real-world applications, but are seldom supported by existing systems. The major advantage of our approach is that it can be used to specify different access control policies that can all coexist in the same system and be enforced by the same security server.

REFERENCES

• 1: K. R. Apt , H. A. Blair , A. Walker, Towards a theory of declarative knowledge, Foundations of deductive databases and logic programming, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc., San Francisco, CA, 1988
• 2: Chitta R. Baral , V. S. Subrahmanian, Stable and extension class theory for logic programs and default logics, Journal of Automated Reasoning, v.8 n.3, p.345-366, June 1992 [doi>10.1007/BF02341854]
• 3: Kenneth A. Berman , John S. Schlipf , John V. Franco, Computing Well-founded Semantics Faster, Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Logic Programming and Nonmonotonic Reasoning, p.113-126, June 26-28, 1995
• 4: Elisa Bertino , Claudio Bettini , Elena Ferrari , Pierangela Samarati, A Temporal Access Control Mechanism for Database Systems, IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, v.8 n.1, p.67-80, February 1996 [doi>10.1109/69.485637]
• 5: Elisa Bertino , Francesco Buccafurri , Elena Ferrari , Pasquale Rullo, An Authorization Model and Its Formal Semantics, Proceedings of the 5th European Symposium on Research in Computer Security, p.127-142, September 16-18, 1998
• 6: Elisa Bertino , Sushil Jajodia , Pierangela Samarati, A flexible authorization mechanism for relational data management systems, ACM Transactions on Information Systems (TOIS), v.17 n.2, p.101-140, April 1999 [doi>10.1145/306686.306687]
• 7: Elisa Bertino , Pierangela Samarati , Sushil Jajodia, Authorizations in relational database management systems, Proceedings of the 1st ACM conference on Computer and communications security, p.130-139, November 03-05, 1993, Fairfax, Virginia, United States [doi>10.1145/168588.168605]
• 8: BRANSTAD, M., TAJALLI, H., MAYER,F.,AND DALVA, D. 1989. Access mediation in a message passing kernel. In Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (Oakland, Calif.). IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos, Calif., pp. 66-72.
• 9: BREWER,D.F.C.AND NASH, M. J. 1989. The chinese wall security policy. In Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (Oakland, Calif.). IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos, Calif., pp. 215-228.
• 10: Hans Hermann Brüggemann, Rights in an Object-Oriented Environment, Results of the IFIP WG 11.3 Workshop on Database Security V: Status and Prospects, p.99-115, November 01, 1991
• 11: Silvana Castano , Maria Grazia Fugini , Giancarlo Martella , Pierangela Samarati, Database security, ACM Press/Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., New York, NY, 1995
• 12: DENNING, D. E., LUNT, T., SCHELL, R., HECKMAN, M., AND SHOCKLEY, S. 1987. Secure distributed data view (Sea View) -the Sea View formal security policy model. Tech. rep. SRI International, Menlo Park, Calif.
• 13: Todd Fine , Spencer E. Minear, Assuring Distributed Trusted Mach, Proceedings of the 1993 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, p.206, May 24-26, 1993
• 14: GELFOND,M.AND LIFSCHITZ, V. 1988. The stable model semantics for logic programming. In Proceedings of the 5th International Conference and Symposium on Logic Programming (Seattle, Wash.). pp. 1070-1080.
• 15: GOTTLOB, G. 1992. Complexity results for nonmonotonic logics. J. Logic Comput. 2, 3, 397-425.
• 16: Sushil Jajodia , Pierangela Samarati , V. S. Subrahmanian, A Logical Language for Expressing Authorizations, Proceedings of the 1997 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, p.31, May 04-07, 1997
• 17: Sushil Jajodia , Pierangela Samarati , V. S. Subrahmanian , Eliza Bertino, A unified framework for enforcing multiple access control policies, Proceedings of the 1997 ACM SIGMOD international conference on Management of data, p.474-485, May 11-15, 1997, Tucson, Arizona, United States
• 18: D. Jonscher , K. R. Dittrich, Argos—a configurable access control system for interoperable environments, Proceedings of the ninth annual IFIP TC11 WG11.3 working conference on Database security IX : status and prospects: status and prospects, p.43-60, January 1996, Rennselaerville, New York, United States
• 19: J. W. Lloyd, Foundations of logic programming; (2nd extended ed.), Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., New York, NY, 1987
• 20: LUNT, T. F. 1989. Access control policies for database systems. In Database Security II: Status and Prospects, C. E. Landwehr, Ed., North-Holland, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, pp. 41-52.
• 21: W. Marek , V. S. Subrahmanian, The relationship between stable, supported, default and autoepistemic semantics for general logic programs, Theoretical Computer Science, v.103 n.2, p.365-386, 14 Sept. 1992 [doi>10.1016/0304-3975(92)90019-C]
• 22: Alberto Martelli , Ugo Montanari, An Efficient Unification Algorithm, ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems (TOPLAS), v.4 n.2, p.258-282, April 1982 [doi>10.1145/357162.357169]
• 23: T. C. Przymusinski, On the declarative semantics of deductive databases and logic programs, Foundations of deductive databases and logic programming, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc., San Francisco, CA, 1988
• 24: Fausto Rabitti , Elisa Bertino , Won Kim , Darrell Woelk, A model of authorization for next-generation database systems, ACM Transactions on Database Systems (TODS), v.16 n.1, p.88-131, March 1991 [doi>10.1145/103140.103144]
• 25: REITER, R. 1980. A logic for default reasoning. Artif. Int. 13, 81-132.
• 26: SAYDJARI,O.S.,TURNER,S.J.,PEELE, D. E., FARRELL,J.F.,LOSCOCCO, P. A., KUTZ,W.,AND BOCK,G.L. 1993. Synergy: A distributed, microkernel-based security architecture, version 1.0. Tech. rep. National Security Agency, Ft. George G. Meade, Md.
• 27: HongHai Shen , Prasun Dewan, Access control for collaborative environments, Proceedings of the 1992 ACM conference on Computer-supported cooperative work, p.51-58, November 01-04, 1992, Toronto, Ontario, Canada [doi>10.1145/143457.143461]
• 28: TARSKI, A. 1955. A lattice-theoretical fixpoint theorem and its applications. Pacific J. Math. 5, 285-309.
• 29: A. Van Gelder, The alternating fixpoint of logic programs with negation, Proceedings of the eighth ACM SIGACT-SIGMOD-SIGART symposium on Principles of database systems, p.1-10, March 1989, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States [doi>10.1145/73721.73722]
• 30: WOO,T.Y.C.AND LAM, S. S. 1993. Authorizations in distributed systems: A new approach. Journal of Computer Security 2, 2,3.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.2 DATABASE MANAGEMENT
      H.2.7 Database Administration
          Subjects: Security, integrity, and protection

Additional Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.6 MANAGEMENT OF COMPUTING AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS

General Terms:
Management, Security

Keywords:
access control policy, authorization, logic programming