Credential purpose-based access control for personal data protection in web-based applications

Web-based applications enable users to carry out their business transactions virtually at any time and place whereby users are required to disclose almost all their personal information which result in greater risks of information disclosure. Therefore, protecting personal information is of utmost importance. Enforcing personal information protection in databases requires controlled access to systems and resources and granted only to authorized users. Traditional access control systems cannot be used in achieving full personal data protection. Current purposebased access control systems provide insufficient protection of personal data especially in web-based applications. This is mainly due to the absence of user authentication in these systems and the fact that data subjects have less control over their information. This research is an effort to overcome this problem in which the Credential Purpose-Based Access Control (CrePBAC) system is introduced. This system implements a two-phase security and an access control mechanism with a model and security policy implementation. The two-phase security model involves user authentication using personal credential and data authorization based on purpose. The organization’s security and privacy policies are implemented using metadata technique in Hippocratic Databases. The metadata technique utilizes a data labeling scheme based on purpose and control data access through query modification. The model and mechanism were successfully implemented. The results from the two types of case studies tested showed that the access control mechanism provides users with more rights and control over their data. In conclusion, this research has introduced a new approach in purpose-based access control with a two-phase security model and mechanism that provides greater control for personal data protection in web-based applications

Blockchain-based access control management for Decentralized Online Social Networks

Online Social Networks (OSNs) represent today a big communication channel where users spend a lot of time to share personal data. Unfortunately, the big popularity of OSNs can be compared with their big privacy issues. Indeed, several recent scandals have demonstrated their vulnerability. Decentralized Online Social Networks (DOSNs) have been proposed as an alternative solution to the current centralized OSNs. DOSNs do not have a service provider that acts as central authority and users have more control over their information. Several DOSNs have been proposed during the last years. However, the decentralization of the social services requires efficient distributed solutions for protecting the privacy of users. During the last years the blockchain technology has been applied to Social Networks in order to overcome the privacy issues and to offer a real solution to the privacy issues in a decentralized system. However, in these platforms the blockchain is usually used as a storage, and content is public. In this paper, we propose a manageable and auditable access control framework for DOSNs using blockchain technology for the definition of privacy policies. The resource owner uses the public key of the subject to define auditable access control policies using Access Control List (ACL), while the private key associated with the subject's Ethereum account is used to decrypt the private data once access permission is validated on the blockchain. We provide an evaluation of our approach by exploiting the Rinkeby Ethereum testnet to deploy the smart contracts. Experimental results clearly show that our proposed ACL-based access control outperforms the Attribute-based access control (ABAC) in terms of gas cost. Indeed, a simple ABAC evaluation function requires 280,000 gas, instead our scheme requires 61,648 gas to evaluate ACL rules

State of The Art and Hot Aspects in Cloud Data Storage Security

Along with the evolution of cloud computing and cloud storage towards matu- rity, researchers have analyzed an increasing range of cloud computing security aspects, data security being an important topic in this area. In this paper, we examine the state of the art in cloud storage security through an overview of selected peer reviewed publications. We address the question of defining cloud storage security and its different aspects, as well as enumerate the main vec- tors of attack on cloud storage. The reviewed papers present techniques for key management and controlled disclosure of encrypted data in cloud storage, while novel ideas regarding secure operations on encrypted data and methods for pro- tection of data in fully virtualized environments provide a glimpse of the toolbox available for securing cloud storage. Finally, new challenges such as emergent government regulation call for solutions to problems that did not receive enough attention in earlier stages of cloud computing, such as for example geographical location of data. The methods presented in the papers selected for this review represent only a small fraction of the wide research effort within cloud storage security. Nevertheless, they serve as an indication of the diversity of problems that are being addressed

The RFID PIA – developed by industry, agreed by regulators

This chapter discusses the privacy impact assessment (PIA) framework endorsed by the European Commission on February 11th, 2011. This PIA, the first to receive the Commission's endorsement, was developed to deal with privacy challenges associated with the deployment of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, a key building block of the Internet of Things. The goal of this chapter is to present the methodology and key constructs of the RFID PIA Framework in more detail than was possible in the official text. RFID operators can use this article as a support document when they conduct PIAs and need to interpret the PIA Framework. The chapter begins with a history of why and how the PIA Framework for RFID came about. It then proceeds with a description of the endorsed PIA process for RFID applications and explains in detail how this process is supposed to function. It provides examples discussed during the development of the PIA Framework. These examples reflect the rationale behind and evolution of the text's methods and definitions. The chapter also provides insight into the stakeholder debates and compromises that have important implications for PIAs in general.Series: Working Papers on Information Systems, Information Business and Operation

Routes for breaching and protecting genetic privacy

We are entering the era of ubiquitous genetic information for research, clinical care, and personal curiosity. Sharing these datasets is vital for rapid progress in understanding the genetic basis of human diseases. However, one growing concern is the ability to protect the genetic privacy of the data originators. Here, we technically map threats to genetic privacy and discuss potential mitigation strategies for privacy-preserving dissemination of genetic data.Comment: Draft for comment