Policy based Role Centric Attribute Based Access Control model Policy RC-ABAC

Smart homes are interconnected homes in which a wide variety of digital devices with limited resources communicate with multiple users and among themselves using multiple protocols. The deployment of resource-limited devices and the use of a wide range of technologies expand the attack surface and position the smart home as a target for many potential security threats. Access control is among the top security challenges in smart home IoT. Several access control models have been developed or adapted for IoT in general, with a few specifically designed for the smart home IoT domain. Most of these models are built on the role-based access control (RBAC) model or the attribute-based access control (ABAC) model. However, recently some researchers demonstrated that the need arises for a hybrid model combining ABAC and RBAC, thereby incorporating the benefits of both models to better meet IoT access control challenges in general and smart homes requirements in particular. In this paper, we used two approaches to develop two different hybrid models for smart home IoT. We followed a role-centric approach and an attribute-centric approach to develop HyBAC <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$_{RC}$</tex-math></inline-formula> and HyBAC <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$_{AC}$</tex-math></inline-formula> , respectively. We formally define these models and illustrate their features through a use case scenario demonstration. We further provide a proof-of-concept implementation for each model in Amazon Web Services (AWS) IoT platform. Finally, we conduct a theoretical comparison between the two models proposed in this paper in addition to the EGRBAC model (RBAC model for smart home IoT) and HABAC model (ABAC model for smart home IoT), which were previously developed to meet smart homes' challenges.

With the increasingly strict requirement for computer system security, access control models have become more complex. Existing models, such as discretionary access control (DAC) model, mandatory access control (MAC) model, role based access control (RBAC) model, and attribute based access control (ABAC) model, all have advantages and disadvantages regarding practicability and security. In addition, there is an inherent security risk in these access control models. The models merely control the access permission, but ignore the verification for the identity credibility of the entities involved in the access. With the proposal of trusted computing and the application of trusted platform, it is possible to implement, on stand-alone computers, the verification of identity credibility for the entities involved in the access. In this paper, we analyze the authorization and access decision policy of the RBAC model and the ABAC model. The characteristics of the trusted computing, which can ensure the identity credibility of the entities involved in the access, is also considered. Based on the above analysis, we establish a trusted computing based enhanced access control (TCBEAC) model, which can be deployed on stand-alone computers for common users.

The area of smart homes is one of the most popular for deploying smart connected devices. One of the most vulnerable aspects of smart homes is access control. Recent advances in IoT have led to several access control models being developed or adapted to IoT from other domains, with few specifically designed to meet the challenges of smart homes. Most of these models use role-based access control (RBAC) or attribute-based access control (ABAC) models. As of now, it is not clear what the advantages and disadvantages of ABAC over RBAC are in general, and in the context of smart-home IoT in particular. In this paper, we introduce HABACα, an attribute-based access control model for smart-home IoT. We formally define HABACα and demonstrate its features through two use-case scenarios and a proof-of-concept implementation. Furthermore, we present an analysis of HABACα as compared to the previously published EGRBAC (extended generalized role-based access control) model for smart-home IoT by first describing approaches for constructing HABACα specification from EGRBAC and vice versa in order to compare the theoretical expressiveness power of these models, and second, analyzing HABACα and EGRBAC models against standard criteria for access control models. Our findings suggest that a hybrid model that combines both HABACα and EGRBAC capabilities may be the most suitable for smart-home IoT, and probably more generally.

The rapid growth of Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled smart home environments has amplified the need for robust, scalable, and context-aware access control mechanisms. Traditional Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) and Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC) models offer distinct advantages such as hierarchical simplicity and contextual granularity, respectively, yet exhibit critical limitations when deployed in isolation. To address these constraints, this study proposes and implements a discrete, hybrid RBAC–ABAC access control framework, engineered as a smart contract on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC), to ensure a secure, decentralized model for managing access to IoT resources. The framework leverages blockchain’s inherent strengths cryptographic integrity, immutable message digests, and tamper-resistant audit trails to reinforce data confidentiality and policy enforcement. Validated on a real-world testbed comprising ESP32-based IoT devices, a Raspberry Pi gateway, and a blockchain backend, the proposed system demonstrates enhanced resilience and trust. Quantitative evaluations benchmark the hybrid model against standalone RBAC and ABAC mechanisms across key metrics, including gas consumption, access latency, access decision accuracy, and scalability. The results indicate the hybrid model achieves superior accuracy (97.2%) and scalability (supporting 50 concurrent users and 30 devices), with moderate gas usage (15,000 gwei) and acceptable latency (1.8 seconds). Furthermore, the use of laser-secure transaction protocols and cryptographic primitives within the smart contract enhances the protection of access rights and resource interactions. This hybrid smart contract architecture not only bridges the gap between theoretical access control models and practical blockchain deployments but also sets a foundation for adaptive, secure, and decentralized policy enforcement in next-generation smart homes, particularly in resource-constrained environments.

Chapter 23 - Policies, Access Control, and Formal Methods

A Virtual Organization (VO) consists of some real organizations with common interests, which aims to provide inter organizational associations to reach some common goals by sharing their resources with each other. Providing security mechanisms, and especially a suitable access control mechanism, which enforces the defined security policy is a necessary requirement in VOs. Since VO is a complex environment with the huge number of users and resources, traditional access control models cannot satisfy VOs security requirements. Most of the current proposals are basically based on the attributes of users and resources. In this paper, we suggest using a combination of the semantic based access control (SBAC) model, and the attribute based access control (ABAC) model with the shared ontology of subjects' attributes in VOs. In this model, each participating organization makes its access control decisions according to an enhanced model of the ABAC model. However, access decision in the VO is made in more abstract level through an enhanced model of theSBACmodel. Using the ontology of users and resources in this model facilitates access control in large scale VOs with numerous organizations. By the combination ofSBACand ABAC, we attain their benefits and eliminate their shortcomings. In order to show the applicability of the proposed model, an access control system, based on the proposed model, has been implemented in Java using available APIs, including Sun's XACML API, Jena, Pellet, and Protege.

Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) is the most commonly used model on web applications. The advantages of RBAC are the ease of understanding, applying and managing privileges. The static RBAC model cannot alter access permission in real-time without human involvement and therefore the model suffers from increasing false negative (and/or false positive) outcomes. Hence, the Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC) model has been proposed to introduce dynamicity and minimize human involvement in order to enhance security. WordPress is a very popular Role-Based content management system. To our best knowledge, no solution to merge from RBAC to ABAC model for WordPress applications has been found. Our contribution is a WordPress plug-in that we have developed to build ABAC upon the existing RBAC setups. In this journey, we have investigated various scenarios by studying different application categories to come up with an enhanced automatic model that adds real-time grant and revoke feature to WordPress.

In the modern computing era, access to resources is often restricted through contextual information and the attributes of users, objects and various other entities. Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC) can capture those requirements as a policy, but it is not yet adopted like Role Based Access Control (RBAC) due to lack of a comprehensive administrative model. In the last few years, several efforts have been made to combine ABAC with RBAC, but they are limited to specification and enforcement only. Recently, we have presented a unified framework along with a role based administrative model that enables specification, enforcement and maintenance of unified access control policies, such as ABAC, RBAC and Meta-Policy Based Access Control (MPBAC). This paper describes role-based administrative model components and then present a methodology which uses a fixed-point based approach for verifying the security properties (like safety and liveness) of those policies in the presence of the administrative model. We also analyse the impact of ABAC, RBAC, MPBAC and administrative model components on the time taken for security analysis. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach is scalable as well as effective.

Healthcare systems are increasingly vulnerable to security threats due to their reliance on digital platforms. Traditional access control models like Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) and Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC) have limitations in mitigating evolving risks in these systems. Despite their unique features, these models face limitations in mitigating evolving risks in healthcare systems. Traditional models are primarily oriented towards allocating permissions according to predetermined roles or policies, which results in challenges in effectively adapting to the dynamic complexities of modern healthcare ecosystems. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel risk-aware RBAC and ABAC access control model to enhance the flexibility, adaptability and security issues associated with healthcare systems. The proposed model integrates RBAC for role-based categorization, ABAC for fine-grained control based on user attributes and environmental factors, and Risk-Based Access Control (RiBAC) for dynamic risk assessment. The proposed model dynamically adjusts access permissions based on risk values, ensuring accurate and adaptable access control decisions. The experimental results demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed model in granting access to authorized users while denying access to unauthorized users. Through a series of 43 experiments that simulate various scenarios of access control operations in the healthcare system, the proposed model demonstrates significant improvement in the accuracy, precision, and recall of access control decisions compared to traditional models. The proposed model’s ability to dynamically assess risk and adjust access permissions based on contextual factors significantly enhances its ability to mitigate threats and protect sensitive medical data.

A major development in the field of access control is the dominant role-based access control (RBAC) scheme. The fascination of RBAC lies in its enhanced security along with the concept of roles. In addition, attribute-based access control (ABAC) is added to the access control models, which is famous for its dynamic behavior. Separation of duty (SOD) is used for enforcing least privilege concept in RBAC and ABAC. Moreover, SOD is a powerful tool that is used to protect an organization from internal security attacks and threats. Different problems have been found in the implementation of SOD at the role level. This paper discusses that the implementation of SOD on the level of roles is not a good option. Therefore, this paper proposes a hybrid access control model to implement SOD on the basis of permissions. The first part of the proposed model is based on the addition of attributes with dynamic characteristics in the RBAC model, whereas the second part of the model implements the permission-based SOD in dynamic RBAC model. Moreover, in comparison with previous models, performance and feature analysis are performed to show the strength of dynamic RBAC model. This model improves the performance of the RBAC model in terms of time, dynamicity, and automatic permissions and roles assignment. At the same time, this model also reduces the administrator’s load and provides a flexible, dynamic, and secure access control model.

Role based access control (RBAC) is well known due to its high security and ease in management for permissions. But it also has some deficiencies like role structure complexity and having no dynamic behavior. Attribute based access control (ABAC) is a dynamic access control model that provides ease of role structuring. Analyzing roles and permissions after implementing access control model and its management is not easy in ABAC. In this paper, an access control model is developed that accumulates the strengths of RBAC and ABAC and also remove some of the deficiencies of above stated models. The proposed model implements and exploits the attributes of objects, permissions, roles, and users as foundation. Moreover the proposed model employs the role structuring ability of ABAC and tight security behavior of RBAC. We also implemented the proposed model and discussed with respect to a case study.

CRBAC: Imposing multi-grained constraints on the RBAC model in the multi-application environment

In recent years, attribute-based access control (ABAC) models have been widely used in big data and cloud computing. However, with the growing importance of data content, using data content to assist authorization for access controls has become more common. In this paper, we propose a dynamic content-driven attribute-based access control model (CABAC) for large-scale unstructured data. CABAC is a fine-grained access control model that use two-layer authorization to balance efficiency and accuracy. The first-layer authorization uses attributes to grant users basic authority and the second-layer authorization uses data content to grant broader authority over “related” data. Experimental results show that CABAC has acceptable efficiency and it can expand the authority of users without reducing security.

Attribute Based Access Control (ABAC) models are designed with the intention to overcome the shortcomings of classical access control models (DAC, MAC and RBAC) and unifying their advantages. In ABAC, the access control is provided based on generic attributes of entities. Many organizational security policies condition access decisions on attributes. OWL can be used to formally define and process security policies that can be captured using ABAC models. We have defined models, domains, data and security policies in OWL and used a reasoner to decide what is permitted. In this paper we present a way to represent the ABACa model using Web Ontology Language (OWL). The enforcement of policies is done using the EYE reasoner that infers the logical relationship and deduce the access grant for each requested action.

Attribute-based access control (ABAC) and role-based access control (RBAC) are currently the two most popular access control models. Yet, they both have known limitations and offer features complimentary to each other. Due to this fact, integration of RBAC and ABAC has recently emerged as an important area of research. In this paper, we propose an access control model that combines the two models in a novel way in order to unify their benefits. Our approach provides a fine-grained access control mechanism that not only takes contextual information into account while making the access control decisions but is also suitable for applications where access to resources is controlled by exploiting contents of the resources in the policy.