An approach to engineer and enforce context constraints in an RBAC environment

ABSTRACT

This paper presents an approach that uses special purpose RBAC constraints to base certain access control decisions on context information. In our approach a context constraint is defined as a dynamic RBAC constraint that checks the actual values of one or more contextual attributes for predefined conditions. If these conditions are satisfied, the corresponding access request can be permitted. Accordingly, a conditional permission is an RBAC permission which is constrained by one or more context constraints. We present an engineering process for context constraints, that is based on goal-oriented requirements engineering techniques, and describe how we extended the design and implementation of an existing RBAC service to enable the enforcement of context constraints. With our approach we aim to preserve the advantages of RBAC, and offer an additional means for the definition and enforcement of fine-grained context-dependent access control policies.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.1 Requirements/Specifications
          Subjects: Elicitation methods (e.g., rapid prototyping, interviews, JAD)

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.1 Requirements/Specifications
          Subjects: Methodologies (e.g., object-oriented, structured)
      D.2.9 Management
          Subjects: Software process models (e.g., CMM, ISO, PSP); Life cycle
  D.4 OPERATING SYSTEMS
      D.4.6 Security and Protection
          Subjects: Access controls

  K. Computing Milieux
  K.6 MANAGEMENT OF COMPUTING AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS
      K.6.5 Security and Protection (D.4.6, K.4.2)
          Subjects: Unauthorized access (e.g., hacking, phreaking)

General Terms:
Design, Management, Security