MLSF: A Framework for Multi-Level Secure Composite Web Services

Abstract

Web services technologies change the software industry drastically by developing and integrating enterprise web services and applications in order to enable the users to access them. There are several research initiatives in the field of Web services for enterprise applications. However, none of the initiatives have attempted for web applications pertaining to academic institution using Web services technology. Web service composition is the combination of web services from different service providers to create a more sophisticated, value added web service to the web users. Researchers put on efforts to bring out the state-of-the art in web services technologies and security technologies for web services. The composition of web services is another promising area for research and development. A study reveals that there are number of approaches providing secure web services. However, there is no attempt made so far to secure the services at multi-level. This paper proposes a Multi-level Secured Framework (MLSF) for the students, faculty and employees of the academic institutions which provides secured composite web services such as admission service, fees payment service, library service, personalized service and so on. The MLSF enhances the security at various levels such as user level, device level, web services level and institution level.