Push-based XML access control policy languages: a review

Several access control policy languages have been proposed for specifying access control policies for push-based XML access control systems. This paper investigates the scalability of the current XML-based policy languages. It starts by introducing the well-known general access control models with more focus on their scalability. Then, the XML-based policy languages are presented followed by evaluating their management and system scalability. This paper founds that there is a need for using decentralized trusted management concept for addressing the scalability issue in XML access control. Also, using IBE will help in providing several access control features as temporal and delegable access

A practical mandatory access control model for XML databases

A practical mandatory access control (MAC) model for XML databases is presented in this paper. The label type and label access policy can be defined according to the requirements of different applications. In order to preserve the integrity of data in XML databases, a constraint between a read-access rule and a write-access rule in label access policy is introduced. Rules for label assignment and propagation are presented to alleviate the workload of label assignments. Furthermore, a solution for resolving conflicts in label assignments is proposed. Rules for update-related operations, rules for exceptional privileges of ordinary users and the administrator are also proposed to preserve the security of operations in XML databases. The MAC model, we proposed in this study, has been implemented in an XML database. Test results demonstrated that our approach provides rational and scalable performance

A flexible mandatory access control policy for XML databases

A flexible mandatory access control policy (MAC) for XML databases is presented in this paper. The label type and label access policy can be defined according to the requirements of applications. In order to preserve the integrity of data in XML databases, a constraint between a read access rule and a write access rule in label access policy is introduced. Rules for label assignment and propagation are proposed to alleviate the workload of label assignment. Also, a solution for resolving conflicts of label assignments is proposed. At last, operations for implementation of the MAC policy in a XML database are illustrated

A General Approach for Securely Querying and Updating XML Data

Over the past years several works have proposed access control models for XML data where only read-access rights over non-recursive DTDs are considered. A few amount of works have studied the access rights for updates. In this paper, we present a general model for specifying access control on XML data in the presence of update operations of W3C XQuery Update Facility. Our approach for enforcing such updates specifications is based on the notion of query rewriting where each update operation defined over arbitrary DTD (recursive or not) is rewritten to a safe one in order to be evaluated only over XML data which can be updated by the user. We investigate in the second part of this report the secure of XML updating in the presence of read-access rights specified by a security views. For an XML document, a security view represents for each class of users all and only the parts of the document these users are able to see. We show that an update operation defined over a security view can cause disclosure of sensitive data hidden by this view if it is not thoroughly rewritten with respect to both read and update access rights. Finally, we propose a security view based approach for securely updating XML in order to preserve the confidentiality and integrity of XML data.Comment: No. RR-7870 (2012

Towards Model-Driven Development of Access Control Policies for Web Applications

We introduce a UML-based notation for graphically modeling systems’ security aspects in a simple and intuitive way and a model-driven process that transforms graphical specifications of access control policies in XACML. These XACML policies are then translated in FACPL, a policy language with a formal semantics, and the resulting policies are evaluated by means of a Java-based software tool

Distributed Access Control for Web and Business Processes

Middleware influenced the research community in developing a number of systems for controlling access to distributed resources. Nowadays a new paradigm for the lightweight integration of business resources from different partners is starting to take hold – Web Services and Business Processes for Web Services. Security and access control policies for Web Services protocols and distributed systems are well studied and almost standardized, but there is not yet a comprehensive proposal for an access control architecture for business processes. So, it is worth looking at the available approaches to distributed authorization as a starting point for a better understanding of what they already have and what they still need to address the security challenges for business processes

XRound : A reversible template language and its application in model-based security analysis

Successful analysis of the models used in Model-Driven Development requires the ability to synthesise the results of analysis and automatically integrate these results with the models themselves. This paper presents a reversible template language called XRound which supports round-trip transformations between models and the logic used to encode system properties. A template processor that supports the language is described, and the use of the template language is illustrated by its application in an analysis workbench, designed to support analysis of security properties of UML and MOF-based models. As a result of using reversible templates, it is possible to seamlessly and automatically integrate the results of a security analysis with a model. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Ensuring Cyber-Security in Smart Railway Surveillance with SHIELD

Modern railways feature increasingly complex embedded computing systems for surveillance, that are moving towards fully wireless smart-sensors. Those systems are aimed at monitoring system status from a physical-security viewpoint, in order to detect intrusions and other environmental anomalies. However, the same systems used for physical-security surveillance are vulnerable to cyber-security threats, since they feature distributed hardware and software architectures often interconnected by ‘open networks’, like wireless channels and the Internet. In this paper, we show how the integrated approach to Security, Privacy and Dependability (SPD) in embedded systems provided by the SHIELD framework (developed within the EU funded pSHIELD and nSHIELD research projects) can be applied to railway surveillance systems in order to measure and improve their SPD level. SHIELD implements a layered architecture (node, network, middleware and overlay) and orchestrates SPD mechanisms based on ontology models, appropriate metrics and composability. The results of prototypical application to a real-world demonstrator show the effectiveness of SHIELD and justify its practical applicability in industrial settings