Adding Context into an Access Control Model for Computer Security Policy

Abstract

In this chapter, we present the role-based context constrained access control (RBCC) model. The model integrates contextual constraints specified in first-order logic with the standard role-based access control (RBAC). In the RBCC access control model, the permission assignment functions are constrained by the user’s current accessing contexts. The accessing contests are further categorized in two classes, that is, system contexts and application contexts. System contexts may contain accessing time, accessing location, and other security-related system information; while application contexts are abstractions of relationships among different types of entities (i.e., subjects, roles, and objects) as well as implicit relationships derived from protected information content and external information. The ability to integrate contextual information allows the RBCC model to be flexible and capable of specifying a variety of complex access policies and providing tight and just-intime permission activations. A set of medical domain examples will be used to demonstrate the expressiveness of the RBCC model.