Towards a flexible framework to support a generalized extension of XACML for spatio-temporal RBAC model with reasoning ability
International Journal of Web Information Systems
ISSN: 1744-0084
Article publication date: 10 June 2014
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to propose a flexible framework to support X-STROWL model. Extensible access control markup language (XACML) is an international standard used for access control in distributed systems. However, XACML and its existing extensions are not sufficient to fulfill sophisticated security requirements (e.g. access control based on user’s roles, context-aware authorizations and the ability of reasoning). Remarkably, X-STROWL, a generalized extension of XACML for spatiotemporal role-based access control (RBAC) model with reasoning ability, is a comprehensive model that overcomes these shortcomings. It mainly focuses on the architecture design as well as the implementation and evaluation of proposed framework and the comparison with others.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on the concept of X-STROWL model, the paper reviewed a large amount of open sources implementing XACML with defined criteria and chose the most suitable framework to be extended for the implementation. The paper also presented a case study used to evaluate the research result.
Findings
Holistic enterprise-ready application security framework – architecture framework (HERAS-AF) is chosen as the most suitable framework to be extended to implement X-STROWL model. Extending HERAS-AF to support spatiotemporal aspect and other contextual conditions as well as the way to integrate security in the access request, together with ability of reasoning for hierarchical roles, are striking features that make the proposed framework able to meet more sophisticated security requirements in comparison with others.
Research limitations/implications
Due to the research content, the performance of proposed framework is not the focused issue of this work.
Originality/value
The proposed framework is a crucial contribution of our research to provide a holistic, extensible and intelligent authorization decision engine.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This research is partly funded by the Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City (VNU-HCM) under grant number B2013-20-02.
Citation
Khanh Dang, T., Thi Kim Le, T., Tuan Dang, A. and Duc Son Van, H. (2014), "Towards a flexible framework to support a generalized extension of XACML for spatio-temporal RBAC model with reasoning ability", International Journal of Web Information Systems, Vol. 10 No. 2, pp. 131-150. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJWIS-12-2013-0037
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2014, Emerald Group Publishing Limited