Chinese wall security policies information flows in business cloud

Abstract

A Business Cloud is defined to be a collection of company datasets that are stored on the Cloud. For simplicity, we have assumed: Each company only has one dataset. There are information flows among these datasets. Within such an environment Chinese Wall Security Policy (CWSP) is revisited. Based on the physical view of Brewer and Nash, the Chinese Wall policy that regulates Conflict of Interest binary Relation, denoted by CIR among company datasets, is investigated. CIR has found to be anti-reflexive, symmetric and anti-transitive, in other words, the compliment of CIR is an equivalence relation. The main theorem states that, from the owner (a company) view, a dataset under CWSP will neve flow into enemies hands (companies in conflicts). More generally, if CIR is anti-reflexive and symmetric, then there are Aggressive Chinese Wall that surrounds the company datasets of those companies who are in conflict, and a Conservative Chinese Wall that that surrounds the company datasets whose owner are friends; note that the set friends is a subset of not in conflict. The main theorem states that no information of those company datasets that are stored within the Aggressive Chinese Wall may never penetrate the Wall, similar conclusion for Conservative Chinese Wall. However those company datasets that are outside these two walls may penetrate the two walls.