A formal modeling and analysis approach for access control rules, policies, and their combinations

• Published in: International journal of information security Vol. 16; no. 1; pp. 43 - 74
• Main Authors: Karimi, Vahid R., Alencar, Paulo S. C., Cowan, Donald D.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.02.2017; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Access control; Algorithms; Analysis; Automation; Coding and Information Theory; Communications Engineering; Computer Communication Networks; Computer programming; Computer Science; Cryptology; Language; Languages; Management of Computing and Information Systems; Modelling; Networks; Operating Systems; Policies; Regular Contribution; Representations; Security management; State machines; Studies; AC combining algorithms; Access control (AC); Modeling; Analysis; XACML
• ISSN: 1615-5262; 1615-5270
• DOI: 10.1007/s10207-016-0314-4

Approaches to access control (AC) policy languages, such as eXtensible access control markup language, do not provide a formal representation for specifying rule- and policy-combining algorithms or for verifying properties of AC policies. Some authors propose formal representations for these combining algorithms. However, the proposed models are not expressive enough to represent formally history-based classes of these algorithms, such as ordered-permit-overrides. In addition, some other authors propose a formal representation but do not present automated support for formal verification of properties of AC policies that use these algorithms. This paper demonstrates a new representation that can express all existing AC rule and policy combinations of which the authors are aware. This representation can also be used to automate the formal verification of properties of AC policies related to these algorithms. A new modeling representation for rule- and policy-combining algorithms based on state machines is used to specify rule- and policy-combining algorithms. Examples of these algorithms are programmed in the language of the SPIN model checker, and the programs are then used to support the automated formal verification of properties of AC policies. We present our approach and then use the AC policies and properties of CONTINUE, a conference management system, to compare it with prior work. Our first contribution is a new modeling representation for combining algorithms based on state machines. The second contribution is the formal verification of AC properties under certain combining algorithms that are beyond the capability of other approaches.