Exception Resolution Service for RBAC systems

In this paper, we propose a role-based access control (RBAC) system for data resources in the Storage Resource Broker (SRB). The SRB is a Data Grid management system, which can integrate heterogeneous data resources of virtual organizations (VOs). The SRB stores the access control information of individual users in the Metadata Catalog (MCAT) database. However, because of the specific MCAT schema structure, this information can only be used by the SRB applications. If VOs also have many non-SRB applications, each with its own storage format for user access control information, it creates a scalability problem with regard to administration. To solve this problem, we developed a RBAC system with Shibboleth, which is an attribute authorization service currently being used in many Grid environments. Thus, the administration overhead is reduced because the role privileges of individual users are now managed by Shibboleth, not by MCAT or applications. In addition, access control policies need to be specified and managed across multiple VOs. For the specification of access control policies, we used the Core and Hierarchical RBAC profile of the eXtensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML); and for distributed administration of those policies, we used the Object, Metadata and Artifacts Registry (OMAR). OMAR is based on the e-business eXtensible Markup Language (ebXML) registry specifications developed to achieve interoperable registries and repositories. Our RBAC system provides scalable and fine-grain access control and allows privacy protection. Performance analysis shows that our system adds only a small overhead to the existing security infrastructure of the SRB.

Role-based access control (RBAC) continues to gain popularity in the management of authorization concerning access to knowledge assets in organizations. As a socio-technical concept, the notion of role in RBAC has been overemphasized, while very little attention is given to the precursors: role strain, role ambiguity, and role conflict. These constructs provide more significant insights into RBAC design in Knowledge Management Systems (KMS). KMS is the technology-based knowledge management tool used to acquire, store, share, and apply knowledge for improved collaboration and knowledge-value creation. In this paper, we propose eight propositions that require future research concerning the RBAC system for knowledge security. In addition, we propose a model that integrates these precursors and RBAC to deepen the understanding of these constructs. Further, we examine these precursory constructs in a socio-technical fashion relative to RBAC in the organizational context and the status–role relationship effects. We carried out conceptual analysis and synthesis of the relevant literature, and present a model that involves the three essential precursors that play crucial roles in role mining and engineering in RBAC design. Using an illustrative case study of two companies where 63 IT professionals participated in the study, the study established that the precursors positively and significantly increase the intractability of the RBAC system design. Our framework draws attention to both the management of organizations and RBAC system developers about the need to consider and analyze the precursors thoroughly before initiating the processes of policy engineering, role mining, and role engineering. The propositions stated in this study are important considerations for future work.

In the past five years there has been tremendous activity in role-based access control (RBAC) models. Consensus has been achieved on a standard core RBAC model that is in process of publication by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). An early insight was that RBAC cannot be encompassed by a single model since RBAC concepts range from very simple to very sophisticated. Hence a family of models is more appropriate than a single model. The NIST model reflects this approach. In fact RBAC is an open-ended concept which can be extended in many different directions as new applications and systems arise. The consensus embodied in the NIST model is a substantial achievement. All the same it just a starting point. There are important aspects of RBAC models, such as administration of RBAC, on which consensus remains to be reached. Recent RBAC models have studied newer concepts such as delegation and personalization, which are not captured in the NIST model. Applications of RBAC in workflow management systems have been investigated by several researchers. Research on RBAC systems that cross organizational boundaries has also been initiated. Thus RBAC models remain a fertile area for future research. In this paper we discuss some of the directions which we feel are likely to result in practically useful enhancements to the current state of art in RBAC models.KeywordsAccess ControlAccess Control ModelRBAC ModelMandatory Access ControlSpringer LNCSThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

The increased complexity of modern access control (AC) systems stems partly from the need to support diverse and multiple administrative domains. Systems engineering is a key technology to manage this complexity since it is capable of assuring that an operational system will adhere to the initial conceptual design and defined requirements. Specifically, the verification stage of an AC system should be based on techniques that have a sound and mathematical underpinning. Working on this assumption, model checking techniques are applied for the verification of predefined system properties, and thus, conducting a security analysis of a system. In this paper, we propose the utilization of automated and error-free model checking techniques for the verification of security properties in multi-domain AC systems. Therefore, we propose a formal definition in temporal logic of four AC system properties regarding secure inter-operation with Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) policies in order to be verified by using model checking. For this purpose, we demonstrate the implementation of a tool chain for expressing RBAC security policies, reasoning on role hierarchies and properly feeding the model checking process. The proposed approach can be applied in any RBAC model to efficiently detect non-conformance between an AC system and its security specifications. As a proof of concept, we provide examples illustrating the verification of the defined secure inter-operation properties in multi-domain RBAC policies.

The complexity of the ATLAS experiment motivated the deployment of an integrated Access Control System in order to guarantee safe and optimal access for a large number of users to the various software and hardware resources. Such an integrated system was foreseen since the design of the infrastructure and is now central to the operations model. In order to cope with the ever growing needs of restricting access to all resources used within the experiment, the Roles Based Access Control (RBAC) previously developed has been extended and improved. The paper starts with a short presentation of the RBAC design, implementation and the changes made to the system to allow the management and usage of roles to control access to the vast and diverse set of resources. The RBAC implementation uses a directory service based on Lightweight Directory Access Protocol to store the users (∼3000), roles (∼320), groups (∼80) and access policies. The information is kept in sync with various other databases and directory services: human resources, central CERN IT, CERN Active Directory and the Access Control Database used by DCS. The paper concludes with a detailed description of the integration across all areas of the system.

With the growing adoption of Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) in commercial security and identity management products, how to facilitate the process of migrating a non-RBAC system to an RBAC system has become a problem with significant business impact. Researchers have proposed to use data mining techniques to discover roles to complement the costly top-down approaches for RBAC system construction. An important problem is how to construct RBAC systems with low complexity. In this article, we define the notion of weighted structural complexity measure and propose a role mining algorithm that mines RBAC systems with low structural complexity. Another key problem that has not been adequately addressed by existing role mining approaches is how to discover roles with semantic meanings. In this article, we study the problem in two primary settings with different information availability. When the only information is user-permission relation, we propose to discover roles whose semantic meaning is based on formal concept lattices. We argue that the theory of formal concept analysis provides a solid theoretical foundation for mining roles from a user-permission relation. When user-attribute information is also available, we propose to create roles that can be explained by expressions of user-attributes. Since an expression of attributes describes a real-world concept, the corresponding role represents a real-world concept as well. Furthermore, the algorithms we propose balance the semantic guarantee of roles with system complexity. Finally, we indicate how to create a hybrid approach combining top-down candidate roles. Our experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our approaches.

Cloud data storage lets customers store vast amounts of data cheaply on demand. Cryptographic role-based access control (RBAC) systems preserve cloud data privacy by restricting access to users. This study develops a trust model to reason about and improve data security in cryptographic RBAC cloud storage systems. The trust degrees of the user determine the access rights to the data and are performed by User Activity Monitoring Agent (UAMA). Two different misconducts of users such as access policy violation and data leakage affect the trust degree of the user, which in turn upgrades the access policy. In addition, the user has to decrypt the data for gaining information from it, which is a second line of security. The performance of trust based RBAC scheme is evaluated with respect to different parameters such as illegitimate user detection, memory consumption, data storage with retrieval time and the proposed work performs better.

Separation-of-duty (SoD) is widely considered to be a fundamental principle to role based access control (RBAC) models and systems should adhere. In this paper, we formulate and study the fundamental problem of SoD policies in the context of RBAC systems. We give a set-based specification of SoD policies and the safety checking problem for SoD policies in the context of RBAC. We study the problem of determining whether a SoD policy is enforceable, and show that directly enforcing SoD policies in RBAC is intractable (coNP-complete). Moreover, indirectly enforcing SoD policies by using mutually exclusive role constraints is also intractable (NP-hard). Therefore, we reduce the safety checking problem for SoD to SAT4J problem which can be solved using available SAT solvers. The experiments show the validity and effectively of the SAT approach.

Accessing timely and accurate information in academic institutions is often challenging, as students, faculty, and administrators struggle to locate dynamic data such as event schedules, meeting details, and academic notifications, which are typically scattered across multiple systems. Traditional university portals lack intuitive, centralized, and fast query mechanisms, leading to inefficiency, delays, and user dissatisfaction. To address this issue, we present Acadbot, a full-stack web application built using the MERN (MongoDB, Express, React, Node.js) stack, offering a unified and user-friendly dashboard for managing academic information, supported by a secure Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) system that ensures proper authorization for different user groups. The core innovation of this project is its lightweight, database-driven AI chat assistant, which deviates from conventional systems that depend on large vector embeddings, FAISS indexes, and separate retrieval pipelines. Instead, Acadbot employs a practical heuristic-based retrieval engine that performs case-insensitive, token-based, and typo-tolerant regex searches directly on the live MongoDB database. By querying real-time operational data rather than relying on preprocessed vector stores, the system reduces complexity and avoids issues related to outdated or unsynchronized information. This approach enables Acadbot to deliver fast, accurate, and context-aware responses tailored to academic environments. The paper further discusses the system architecture, the implementation of the heuristic retrieval algorithm, and the benefits of adopting this efficient approach for domain-specific academic chatbots. Keywords: MERN Stack, AI Chatbot, Academic Portal, Heuristic Retrieval, Information Retrieval, Role-Based Access Control (RBAC).

Optimizing CNN-LSTM neural networks with PSO for anomalous query access control

The management of observing proposals is a critical operational component for modern astronomical facilities. As missions grow in complexity, the demand for efficient, fair, and adaptable proposal handling systems is increasingly pressing. Existing systems are often monolithic and tightly coupled to a specific observatory, lacking the flexibility to be easily adapted. This paper introduces AstroPropose, a novel, general-purpose framework for creating and managing astronomical observing proposal systems, derived from the architecture of the operational Einstein Probe Observing Proposal System (EOPS). AstroPropose is centered on a powerful visual workflow engine, enabling administrators to define and deploy entire proposal workflows through a graphical interface. Key features include a dynamic form builder, a configurable workflow engine, and a flexible role-based access control (RBAC) system. We present the complete architecture and data model. As validation, we detail how the framework’s design principles are embodied in EOPS, which has successfully managed two annual proposal cycles and handles daily time-critical Target of Opportunity (ToO) submissions for the Einstein Probe mission. To further demonstrate the framework’s generalizability, we present a second case study: its adaptation as the proposal management prototype for the Chinese Space Station Telescope (CSST), a multi-instrument survey mission with a dual-phase review process. AstroPropose, validated through the successful operation of EOPS and the rapid prototyping of the CSST system, is being prepared for an open-source release to the astronomical community.

With the growing adoption of role-based access control (RBAC) in commercial security and identity management products, how to facilitate the process of migrating a non-RBAC system to an RBAC system has become a problem with significant business impact. Researchers have proposed to use data mining techniques to discover roles to complement the costly top-down approaches for RBAC system construction. A key problem that has not been adequately addressed by existing role mining approaches is how to discover roles with semantic meanings. In this paper, we study the problem in two settings with different information availability. When the only information is user-permission relation, we propose to discover roles whose semantic meaning is based on formal concept lattices. We argue that the theory of formal concept analysis provides a solid theoretical foundation for mining roles from userpermission relation. When user-attribute information is also available, we propose to create roles that can be explained by expressions of user-attributes. Since an expression of attributes describes a real-world concept, the corresponding role represents a real-world concept as well. Furthermore, the algorithms we proposed balance the semantic guarantee of roles with system complexity. Our experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our approaches.

Role based Access Control (RBAC) is known as an evolution in the field of access control. The strength of RBAC is considered due to the incorporation of concept of roles. Separation of Duty (SOD) is a constraint that implements least privilege principle in RBAC. Dynamic Separation of Duty (DSD) is a powerful constraint to control internal security threats. Current RBAC standard implements DSD on the level of roles. This creates various problems. In this paper, various problems in case of implementing DSD on the level of roles are identified. We show and prove that RBAC's strength is the incorporation of concept of roles but this is not for better security in terms of authorization. Instead this helps in better administration or usability for users. The RBAC usability can be improved if RBAC administration is being implemented on the basis of roles and access control can be more secure if DSD is being implemented on the basis of conflicting permissions. The concept of normalized roles is also introduced. The proposed model implements access control on the basis of normalized role. DSD is being implemented on the basis of conflicting permissions and non-conflicting permissions are exercised under the umbrella of role. This becomes a hybrid approach for access control. The administrators are given freedom in implementing DSD in various modes according to the organizational requirements from lenient to strict implementation. The proposed model is also formally specified and the benefits as a result of implementing the proposed model are discussed.

Recently there has been considerable interest in role-based access control (RBAC) as an alternative, and supplement, to the traditional discretionary and mandatory access controls (DAC and MAC) embodied in the Orange Book. The roots of RBAC can be traced back to the earliest access control systems. Roles have been used in a number of systems for segregating various aspects of security and system administration. Recent interest in RBAC has been motivated by the use of roles at the application level to control access to application data. This is an important innovation which offers the opportunity to realize benefits in securing an organization's information assets, similar to the benefits of employing databases instead of files as the data repository. A number of proposals for RBAC have been published in the literature, but there is no consensus on precisely what is meant by RBAC. This paper lays the groundwork for developing this consensus. In our view RBAC is a concept which has several dimensions, all of which may not be present in a given system or product. We envisage each dimension as being linearly ordered with respect to the sophistication of features provided. This leads us to the idea of a multi-dimension model for RBAC. Achieving agreement on what these dimensions are, and how the features in each dimension should be ordered, will take debate and time. Our contribution here is to lay out a vision on how to approach a common understanding of RBAC, and take a first cut at identifying the dimensions of RBAC. A major benefit of such a multidimensional RBAC would be to allow comparison of different products and assess their appropriateness for various system requirements.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

In many domains, organizations must model personnel and corresponding data access privileges as fine-grained hierarchical access control models. One class of such models, Role-based Access Control (RBAC) models, has been widely accepted and deployed. However, RBAC models are often used without involving cryptographic keys nor considering confidentiality/privacy at the data level. How to design, implement and dynamically modify such a hierarchy, ensure user and data privacy and distribute and manage necessary cryptographic keys are issues of the utmost importance. One elegant solution for cryptography-based hierarchical access control combines the collusion-resistant and privacy-preserving Access Control Polynomial (ACP) and Atallah's Dynamic and Efficient Extended Key Management scheme. Such a model involves cryptographic keys used to encrypt data, can address confidentiality/privacy at the data level and can efficiently support dynamic changes to the RBAC access hierarchy. In this paper, we discuss several implementation challenges and propose solutions when deploying such a system including: data encryption and decryption, key storage and key distribution. Furthermore, we provide analysis of the efficiency and scalability of the resulting system.