An Administrative Model for Relationship-Based Access Control

Abstract

Abstract. Relationship-based access control (ReBAC) originated in the context of social network systems and recently is being generalized to be suitable for general computing systems. This paper defines a ReBAC model, based on Crampton and Sellwood's RPPM model, designed to be suitable for general computing systems. Our ReBAC model includes a comprehensive administrative model. The administrative model is comprehensive in the sense that it allows and controls changes to all aspects of the ReBAC policy. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first comprehensive administrative model for a ReBAC model suitable for general computing systems. The model is illustrated with parts of a sample access control policy for electronic health records in a healthcare network.

Relationship‐based access control: More than a social network access control model

“…The most comprehensive administrative model for ReBAC was introduced by Stoller () to perform administrative operations within the formalization of Crampton and Sellwood (, ). The model classifies the administrative operations into four classes: Additions and deletions of relationships edges Additions and deletions of objects Additions and deletions of policies Setting of systemwide defaults and conflict‐resolution strategies …”

“…Policies associated with add _ obj can refer to s and o 2 but not o 1 . Stoller () does not ask anything about n r , but since every object must have a type, this edge can be to the type_of relationship and o 2 the type of o 1 .…”

“…Moreover, if a policy π 2 applies to a request ( s , add _ pol , π 1 ) then, the request is granted if under any consistent protection state π 1 implies π 2 . Stoller () describes a method to perform this checking for the policy specification language of Crampton and Sellwood (). But, checking this implication seems very similar to the problem of query containment in relational databases, which is a computationally hard problem in most cases (Florescu, Levy, & Suciu, ).…”

Classifying and Comparing Attribute-Based and Relationship-Based Access Control

“…All the models reviewed so far are operational models. Recently a number of ReBAC administrative models have also been proposed for general purpose ReBAC [19,25,49] which consider graph dynamics such as adding/deleting nodes (entities) and or edges (relationships). In particular, [19] introduces the concept of dependent edge in ReBAC and considering dependencies during edge deletion.…”

Extended ReBAC Administrative Models with Cascading Revocation and Provenance Support

“…The main contribution of Rizvi et al [30] lies in the implementation of ReBAC in a medical record system, where administrative actions regarding relationship edges are addressed in terms of security preconditions and execution effects. Stoller's RPPM 2 model [33], on the other hand, focuses on policy specifications and provides a complete coverage of ReBAC administration, including changes on entities, edges, and policies.…”