Towards a Formal Model of Privacy-Sensitive Dynamic Coalitions

The concept of dynamic coalitions (also virtual organizations) describes the temporary interconnection of autonomous agents, who share information or resources in order to achieve a common goal. Through modern technologies these coalitions may form across company, organization and system borders. Therefor questions of access control and security are of vital significance for the architectures supporting these coalitions. In this paper, we present our first steps to reach a formal framework for modeling and verifying the design of privacy-sensitive dynamic coalition infrastructures and their processes. In order to do so we extend existing dynamic coalition modeling approaches with an access-control-concept, which manages access to information through policies. Furthermore we regard the processes underlying these coalitions and present first works in formalizing these processes. As a result of the present paper we illustrate the usefulness of the Abstract State Machine (ASM) method for this task. We demonstrate a formal treatment of privacy-sensitive dynamic coalitions by two example ASMs which model certain access control situations. A logical consideration of these ASMs can lead to a better understanding and a verification of the ASMs according to the aspired specification.Comment: In Proceedings FAVO 2011, arXiv:1204.579

Formalisation and Implementation of the XACML Access Control Mechanism

We propose a formal account of XACML, an OASIS standard adhering to the Policy Based Access Control model for the specifica- tion and enforcement of access control policies. To clarify all ambiguous and intricate aspects of XACML, we provide it with a more manageable alternative syntax and with a solid semantic ground. This lays the basis for developing tools and methodologies which allow software engineers to easily and precisely regulate access to resources using policies. To demonstrate feasibility and effectiveness of our approach, we provide a software tool, supporting the specification and evaluation of policies and access requests, whose implementation fully relies on our formal development

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

Formalisation and Implementation of the XACML Access Control Mechanism

Abstract. We propose a formal account of XACML, an OASIS standard adhering to the Policy Based Access Control model for the specification and enforcement of access control policies. To clarify all ambiguous and intricate aspects of XACML, we provide it with a more manageable alternative syntax and with a solid semantic ground. This lays the basis for developing tools and methodologies which allow software engineers to easily and precisely regulate access to resources using policies. To demonstrate feasibility and effectiveness of our approach, we provide a software tool, supporting the specification and evaluation of policies and access requests, whose implementation fully relies on our formal development

A Formal Approach to Specification, Analysis and Implementation of Policy-Based Systems

The design of modern computing systems largely exploits structured sets of declarative rules called policies. Their principled use permits controlling a wide variety of system aspects and achieving separation of concerns between the managing and functional parts of systems. These so-called policy-based systems are utilised within different application domains, from network management and autonomic computing to access control and emergency handling. The various policy-based proposals from the literature lack however a comprehensive methodology supporting the whole life-cycle of system development: specification, analysis and implementation. In this thesis we propose formally-defined tool-assisted methodologies for supporting the development of policy-based access control and autonomic computing systems. We first present FACPL, a formal language that defines a core, yet expressive syntax for the specification of attribute-based access control policies. On the base of its denotational semantics, we devise a constraint-based analysis approach that enables the automatic verification of different properties of interest on policies. We then present PSCEL, a FACPL-based formal language for the specification of autonomic computing systems. FACPL policies are employed to enforce authorisation controls and context-dependent adaptation strategies. To statically point out the effects of policies on system behaviours, we rely again on a constraint-based analysis approach and reason on progress properties of PSCEL systems. The implementation of the languages and their analyses provides us some practical software tools. The effectiveness of the proposed solutions is illustrated through real-world case studies from the e-Health and autonomic computing domains

Vérification et validation de politiques de contrôle d'accès dans le domaine médical

Dans le domaine médical, la numérisation des documents et l’utilisation des dossiers patient électroniques (DPE, ou en anglais EHR pour Electronic Health Record) offrent de nombreux avantages, tels que la facilité de recherche et de transmission de ces données. Les systèmes informatiques doivent reprendre ainsi progressivement le rôle traditionnellement tenu par les archivistes, rôle qui comprenait notamment la gestion des accès à ces données sensibles. Ces derniers doivent en effet être rigoureusement contrôlés pour tenir compte des souhaits de confidentialité des patients, des règles des établissements et de la législation en vigueur. SGAC, ou Solution de Gestion Automatisée du Consentement, a pour but de fournir une solution dans laquelle l’accès aux données du patient serait non seulement basée sur les règles mises en place par le patient lui-même mais aussi sur le règlement de l’établissement et sur la législation. Cependant, cette liberté octroyée au patient est source de divers problèmes : conflits, masquage des données nécessaires aux soins ou encore tout simplement erreurs de saisie. Pour effectuer ces vérifications, les méthodes formelles fournissent des moyens fiables de vérification de propriétés tels que les preuves ou la vérification de modèles. Cette thèse propose des méthodes de vérification adaptées à SGAC pour le patient : elle introduit le modèle formel de SGAC, des méthodes de vérifications de propriétés. Afin de mener ces vérifications de manière automatisée, SGAC est modélisé en B et Alloy ; ces différentes modélisations donnent accès aux outils Alloy et ProB, et ainsi à la vérification automatisée de propriétés via la vérification de modèles ou model checking.Abstract : In healthcare, data digitization and the use of the Electronic Health Records (EHR) offer several benefits, such as the reduction of the space occupied by data, or the ease of data search or data exchanges. IT systems must gradually take up the archivist’s role by managing the accesses over sensitive data, which have to be compliant with patient wishes, hospital rules, as well as laws and regulations. SGAC, or Solution de Gestion Automatisée du Consentement (Automated Consent Management Solution), aims to provide a solution in which access to patient data would be based on patient rules, hospital rules and laws. However, the freedom granted to the patient can cause several problems : conflicts, concealment of crucial data needed to treat the patient adequately, and data-capture errors. Therefore, verification and validation of policies are essential : formal methods provide reliable ways, such as proofs or model checking, to conduct verifications of properties. This thesis provides verification methods applied on SGAC for the patient : it introduces the formal model of SGAC, methods to verify properties such as data access resolution, hidden data detection or redundant rule identification. Modeling of SGAC in B and Alloy provides access to the tools Alloy and ProB, and thus, automated property verification through model checking

On Usage Control for Data Grids: Models, Architectures, and Specifications

This thesis reasons on usage control in Data Grids, by presenting models, architectures and specifications. This work is a step toward a continuous monitoring and control of the data access and usage in a Data Grid. First, the thesis presents a background on Grids, security, and security for Grids, by making an abstraction to the current Grid implementations. We argue that usage control in Data Grids should be considered as a process composed by two black boxes. We analysed the requirements for Grid security, and propose a distributed usage control model suitable for Grids and distributed systems alike. Then, we apply such model to a Data Grid abstraction, and present a usage control architecture for Data Grids that uses the functional components of the currents Grids. We also present an abstract specification for an enforcing mechanism for usage control policies. To do so, we use a formal requirement engineering methodology with a bottom-up approach, that proves that the specification is sound and complete. With the methodology, we show formally that such abstract specification can enforce all the different typologies of usage control policies. Finally, we consider how existing prototypes can fit in the proposed architecture, and the advantages derived from using Semantic Grid techologies for the specification of policies subjects and objects