An Access Control Model for a Grid Environment Employing Security-as-a-Service Approach

Workflow access control is an important issue in workflow security. Although there exist some standards for security of Web services and access control for services in distributed systems are well studied, there is a lack of comprehensive approach in access control for web services, especially in workflow. This paper proposes a service oriented workflow model and its access control model. The basic authorization unit is task service which is an abstraction of task in the access control model. In this context, we present the dynamic separation of duty based on task services and their conflict relations. Furthermore, we show this model satisfies access control requirements in workflow.

A key challenge in Web services security is the design of effective access control schemes that can adequately meet the unique security challenges posed by the Web services paradigm. Despite the recent advances in Web based access control approaches applicable to Web services, there remain issues that impede the development of effective access control models for Web services environment. Amongst them are the lack of context-aware models for access control, and reliance on identity or capability-based access control schemes. Additionally, the unique service access control features required in Web services technology are not captured in existing schemes. In this paper, we motivate the design of an access control scheme that addresses these issues, and propose an extended, trust-enhanced version of our XML-based Role Based Access Control (X-RBAC) framework that incorporates trust and context into access control. We outline the configuration mechanism needed to apply our model to the Web services environment, and provide a service access control specification. The paper presents an example service access policy composed using our framework, and also describes the implementation architecture for the system.

Elisa Bertino, Sushil Jajodia, and Pierangela Samarati Although there are several choices of policies for protection of information, access control models have been developed for a fixed set pre-defined access control policies that are then built into the corresponding access control mechanisms. This becomes a problem, however, if the access control requirements of an application are different from the policies built into a mechanism. In most cases, the only solution is to enforce the requirements as part of the application code, but this makes verification, modification, and adequate enforcement of these policies impossible. In this paper, we propose a flexible authorization mechanism that can support different security policies. The mechanism enforces a general authorization model onto which multiple access control policies can be mapped. The model permits negative and positive authorizations, authorizations that must be strongly obeyed and authorizations that allow for exceptions, and enforces ownership together with delegation of administrative privileges.

The related and often challenging topics of identity management and access control form an essential foundation for e-health infrastructure. Several approaches and supporting specifications for electronic healthcare record system (EHR-S) communication have been proposed by research projects and standards development organizations in recent years. For instance, part four of the CEN TC251 EN13606 EHRcom standard and the HL7 Role Based Access Control Draft Standard for Trial Use have helped to specify the nature of access control behaviour in relation to EHR communication within and between healthcare organisations. Access control services are a core component not only of the integrated care EHR-S but also for other information systems in the e-health domain. To underpin functionality of this type in a distributed environment, it is necessary to provide access to scalable, secure and uniform ID domains for users and patients.This paper considers the use of part four of the EHRcom standard in the context of the availability (or lack thereof) of national identification systems for patients and for users of an integrated care EHR-S. This work begins with a brief summary of the state-of-the-art in identity management and access control in the health domain and a description of approaches that could lead to a secure and interoperable identification mechanism. To address the identification problem, the authors describe well known EHR access control viewpoints that are compatible with the CEN standard for EHR communication, EN13606 and describe how an identification service can support this functionality.KeywordsElectronic Healthcare record systemIdentity managementID domainEHRcom standardAccess control

Traditional access control mechanisms prevent illegal access by controlling access right before executing an action; they belong to a class of a priori security solutions and, from this point of view, they have some limitations, like inflexibility in unanticipated circumstances. By contrast, a posteriori mechanisms enforce policies not by preventing unauthorized access, but rather by deterring it. Such access control needs evidence to prove violations. Evidence is derived from one or several log records, which trace each user's actions. Efficiency of violation detection mostly depends on the compliance of log records with the access control policy. In order to develop an efficient method for finding these violations, we propose restructuring log records according to a security policy model. We illustrate our methodology by applying it to the healthcare domain, taking care of the IHE (Integrating the healthcare enterprise) framework, particularly its basic security profile, ATNA (Audit Trail and Node Authentication). This profile defines log records established on the analysis of common health practice scenarios. We analyze and establish how ATNA log records can be refined in order to be integrated into an a posteriori access and usage control process, based on an expressive and contextual security policy like the OrBAC policy.

PurposeProvide a secure solution for web services (WS). A new interoperable and distributed access control for WS is presented.Design/methodology/approachBased on the separation of the access control (AC) and authorization function.FindingsMechanisms presented allow seamless integration of external authorization entities in the AC system. The Semantic Policy Language (SPL) developed facilitates specification of policies and semantic policy validation. SPL specifications are modular and can be composed without ambiguity. Also addressed was the problem of the association of policies to resources (WS or their operations) in a dynamic, flexible and automated way.Research limitations/implicationsThe ACProxy component is currently under development. Ongoing work is focused on achieving a richer “use control” for some types of WS.Practical implicationsAdministrators of WS can specify AC policies and validate them to find syntactic and semantic errors. Components for automated validation of policies at different levels are included. This ensures that the AC policies produce the desired effects, facilitating the creation and maintenance of policies. It also provides mechanisms for the use of interoperable authorizations.Originality/valueA practical system that provides a secure solution to AC for WS. To the best of one's knowledge, no other system provides mechanisms for semantic validation of policies based on external authorization entities. Likewise, the mechanisms for interoperability of external authorization entities are also novel. The system provides content‐based access control and a secure, decentralized and dynamic solution for authorization that facilitates the management of complex systems and enhances the overall security of the AC.

This chapter analyzes the various types of policies implemented by the Web security services. According to X.800 definition, there are five basic Web security services categories: authentication, non-repudiation, access control, data integrity, and data confidentiality. In this chapter, we discuss access control and data privacy services. Access control services may adopt various models according to the needs of the protected environment. In order to guide the design of access control models, several policy-expressing languages have been standardized. Our contribution is to describe and compare the various models and languages. Data privacy policies are categorized according to their purpose, that is, whether they express promises and preferences, manage the dissemination of privacy preferences, or handle the fulfillment of the privacy promises. The chapter is enriched with a discussion on the future trends in access control and data privacy.

The common security policies of access control and resource management are based upon a central managing authority, called the system administration, that is ultimately responsible for the management of a usage policy. This management is usually done with some combination of mandatory access control and discretionary access control methods, where each user is granted (or denied) privileges and resources depending on the usage policies enforced at that particular system. System administration includes the management of system resources, user accounts, and user privileges. This security policy is typified by an operating system such as UNIX, and it introduces several dificulties when working in a distributed computing environment. This paper addresses distributed resource management and access control. It proposes a new version of the “Distributed Compartment Model” (DChf), first developed by Greenwald in his 1994 doctoral dissertation. DCM consists of two major components: Handles, a method for role based access control, and Distributed Compartments, a method allowing users to manage resources within a distributed system across administrative domain boundaries. This new version of DCM discussed in this paper is a refinement of the original formal security policy model. This paper concentrates on the history and background of the problems motivating the creation of DCM, describes the informal security policy, proposes some ezample scenan’os as to how DCM could be used, and concludes with a discussion of the results of this research.

The rapid adoption of cloud computing has transformed the way data is stored, shared, and accessed across organizationsand individuals. Despite its scalability and cost efficiency, cloud storage introduces serious security and privacy challenges, particularly when sensitive data is outsourced to third-party cloud service providers. Traditional access control mechanisms often rely on the cloud provider’s trustworthiness, which may expose data to unauthorized access, insider threats, and data breaches. To address these concerns, CryptCloud+ is proposed as a secure and expressive data access control framework that enforces fine-grained authorization directly through cryptographic techniques. CryptCloud+ focuses on ensuring data confidentiality while enabling flexible and policy-driven access control over encrypted cloud data. The system leverages encryption-based access control, where data is encrypted before being uploaded to the cloud, and only authorized users possessing valid cryptographic credentials can decrypt and access the data. This approach eliminates the need to trust the cloud service provider, as all sensitive operations related to data access are handled at the client side. A key contribution of CryptCloud+ is its support for expressive access policies, allowing data owners to define complex rules based on user attributes such as roles, departments, access levels, or time constraints. These policies enable fine grained access control without requiring data owners to manage individual permissions manually. The framework ensures that users can access only the data they are authorized for, while unauthorized users, including cloud administrators, are unable to infer any meaningful information from the encrypted data. The proposed system is implemented using Python, taking advantage of its robust cryptographic libraries, simplicity, and integration capabilities. Python-based modules handle key generation, encryption, decryption, and policy enforcement, making the system modular and easy to extend. The implementation demonstrates how secure key management and attribute-based access enforcement can be achieved efficiently in a real-world cloud environment. CryptCloud+ also addresses scalability and performance concerns by minimizing computation overhead during data access. Encryption and decryption operations are optimized to ensure that system performance remains practical even as the number of users and data files increases. Experimental results indicate that the framework maintains strong security guarantees while providing acceptable response times for authorized users. In addition to security, the system enhances usability by allowing seamless data sharing among multiple users without re encrypting data for each individual. This significantly reduces management complexity for data owners while preserving strict access control policies. The system design ensures compatibility with existing cloud storage services, making itadaptable to various deployment scenarios. Overall, CryptCloud+ presents a secure, flexible, and effiient solution for cloud data access control. By combining cryptographic enforcement with expressive policy definition and Python-based implementation, the frameworkstrengthens data security, protects user privacy, and improves trust in cloud storage systems. The proposed model demonstrates the feasibility of practical, cryptography-driven access control for modern cloud environments.

CAN communication developed for communication between electric control devices in vehicle, was recently applied to automatic breaking devices, and can also be applied to field bus for production automation. Recently, field bus is introduced in engine control etc., for large ship. In this paper, cabin access control system is implemented, based on CAN communication. The cabin access control system based on CAN communication consists of access control server, embedded system based on ARM9, and micro-controller built-in CAN controller. The access control server can be able to manage overall access control system by accessing with manager. And embedded system adopted ARM9 processor transmits access information of RFID reader controller connected with CAN networks to server, also performs access control. The embedded system carry CAN frames to server, so it is used as gateway.

Chapter 23 - Policies, Access Control, and Formal Methods

BackgroundClinical information systems frequently use intranet and Internet technologies. However these technologies have emphasized sharing and not security, despite the sensitive and private nature of much health information. Digital certificates (electronic documents which recognize an entity or its attributes) can be used to control access in clinical intranet applications.ObjectivesTo outline the need for access control in distributed clinical database systems, to describe the use of digital certificates and security policies, and to propose the architecture for a system using digital certificates, cryptography and security policy to control access to clinical intranet applications.MethodsWe have previously developed a security policy, DIMEDAC (Distributed Medical Database Access Control), which is compatible with emerging public key and privilege management infrastructure. In our implementation approach we propose the use of digital certificates, to be used in conjunction with DIMEDAC.ResultsOur proposed access control system consists of two phases: the ways users gain their security credentials; and how these credentials are used to access medical data. Three types of digital certificates are used: identity certificates for authentication; attribute certificates for authorization; and access-rule certificates for propagation of access control policy. Once a user is identified and authenticated, subsequent access decisions are based on a combination of identity and attribute certificates, with access-rule certificates providing the policy framework.ConclusionsAccess control in clinical intranet applications can be successfully and securely managed through the use of digital certificates and the DIMEDAC security policy.

In the age of IoT, access control of smart objects and services has become more important than ever. However, existing access control mechanisms are not flexible enough to cover the demands in many of the real use cases in IoT scenarios. For instance, visitors of IoT-enabled buildings may need to use the IoT facilities of the room they visit, for a limited period of time. In order to realize such flexibility in access control of IoT, we propose AFWA, an access control framework that seamlessly integrates Web API in access control. By integrating Web API in access control, event information from Calendar API, for example, can be used for judging access permissions of IoT devices.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide a framework for enhancing security policy management in the Grid.Design/methodology/approachThe Grid security policy reconciliation problem is presented. A generic view on the security policy notion is adopted and the security policy ontology notion is introduced and used.FindingsIn the course of this work it was found that, in order to enhance security policy management in the Grid, Grid entities should have the ability to negotiate their security policies. It was also found that, in order to achieve security policy negotiation, effective security policy semantics manipulation towards security policy reconciliation is needed. Finally, it was established, through the use of an example, that if appropriate means are used for security policy reconciliation then incompatible security policy representations can be transformed into compatible ones.Research limitations/implicationsResearch limitations stem from the adoption of a generic view on the security policy notion and the selection of identification and authentication security policies as the focal point of the proposed framework. Research implications include the possibility of examining how existing security policy reconciliation models can be incorporated in this generic framework. The possibility of investigating how such a framework can lead to a security policy knowledge management tool for Grid administrators is also demonstrated.Practical implicationsPractical implications of this work include the establishment of a common framework for security information exchange between Grid entities.Originality/valueThis paper proposes a framework for enhancing security policy management in the Grid. The proposed framework can be used by researchers as a reference and by security experts in order to reduce ambiguity concerning the interpretation of security policies expressed in different forms, by negotiating Grid entities.

Service Location Protocol (SLP) is a standard service discovery protocol proposed by IETF. SLP provides a flexible and scalable service discovery framework over IP networks. This paper presents an approach for service discovery and access control under session-based peer-to-peer communications. In other words, it is an approach providing mechanisms for restricting unauthorized discovery or access to restricted services. The proposed approach integrates and leverages SLP with Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). Moreover, this approach can be used to share services from a Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN) like Bluetooth across the Internet domain.