Usage Control Model Research Articles

A decentralized model for usage and information flow control in distributed systems

Data usage control enables data owners to enforce policies for their data, by defining authorizations, but also obligations, which are actions to be performed before, during or after being granted access such as accepting web cookies, and conditions bearing on the system and environment attributes, e.g., the time. Usage control is often coupled with information flow control to monitor how data are propagated. While usage control is well established and modeled in centralized systems, the literature has only partially addressed usage control for distributed systems, for instance by distributing the usage control system components. However, when it comes to assigning policy to certain data, it is always enforced by a central authority. This paper proposes an extended usage control model to integrate decentralized information flow control (DIFC), which enables users to decide collectively which policy to apply to their common data. Functions to handle connection status aspects are also considered, for dynamic Internet of Things (IoT) or peer-to-peer networks where parts of the distributed network can be disconnected. Architectural aspects and formal definitions to enable decentralized policies for shared data are proposed as a novelty, resulting from the integration of DIFC. We used the TLA+ formal specification language on the proposed model and its attached model checker TLC to detect potential issues. We detected potential deadlocks due to the new connection functions as well as temporal ordering issues then suggested mitigations accordingly. A privacy analysis is provided using a car-sharing scenario to highlight the benefits of usage control.

ZTA-IoT: A Novel Architecture for Zero-Trust in IoT Systems and an Ensuing Usage Control Model

Recently, several researchers motivated the need to integrate Zero Trust (ZT) principles when designing and implementing authentication and authorization systems for IoT. An integrated Zero Trust IoT system comprises the network infrastructure (physical and virtual) and operational policies in place for IoT as a product of a ZT architecture plan. This paper proposes a novel Zero Trust architecture for IoT systems called ZTA-IoT. Additionally, based on different types of interactions between various layers and components in this architecture, we present ZTA-IoT-ACF, an access control framework that recognizes different interactions that need to be controlled in IoT systems. Within this framework, the paper then refines its focus to object-level interactions, i.e., interactions where the target resource is a device (equivalently a thing) or an information file generated or stored by a device. Building on the recently proposed Zero Trust score-based authorization framework (ZT-SAF) we develop the object-level Zero Trust score-based authorization framework for IoT systems, denoted as ZTA-IoT-OL-SAF, to govern access requests in this context. With this machinery in place, we finally develop a novel usage control model for users-to-objects and devices-to-objects interactions, denoted as UCON IoT . We give formal definitions, illustrative use cases, and a proof-of-concept implementation of UCON IoT . This paper is a first step toward establishing a rigorous formally-defined score-based access control framework for Zero Trust IoT systems.

Translating Usage Control Policies to Semantic Rules: A Model using OrBAC and SWRL

The increasing volume of data in various environments such as IoT and the need to maintain data privacy and security have led to the development of usage control models. Usage control policies are models that enable fine-grained access control over data by enforcing restrictions on how users can use the data. Semantic mechanisms, on the other hand, use context and meaning to identify potential security threats and prevent them from accessing sensitive information. Although not widely explored, merging these two techniques could create an efficient mechanism to help ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of critical data and resources. This paper aims to encourage this research path by proposing a translation model that converts usage control rules into SWRL. In particular, we consider during our approach the notions of contexţ permission and prohibition. The proposition is validated by constructing a multi-layer proof of concept that use ontologies and OWL for implementing the translation model. Furthermore, to ascertain the practicality of our approach, a time processing evaluation is conducted, and the results are found to be satisfactory.

Risk-Based Dynamic Identity Authentication Method Based on the UCON Model

With the continuous progress of computer technology, static identity authentication technology has encountered challenges in practical applications; in addition, it has deficiencies in continuity and mutability. For these reasons, we propose a risk-based dynamic identity authentication method based on the Usage Control (UCON) model. When authenticating a user, we consider their access rights based on the degree of risk, except in case of password authentication. We propose a risk assessment method, and blockchain technology is used in the scheme to provide a reliable process for risk assessment and authorization. Our scheme represents an improvement in traditional identity authentication, resulting in higher continuity and mutability. We also prove that the scheme has high security and scalability.

Embedding Risk-Based Anonymization into Data Access Control for Providing Individual-Level Health Data in a Secure Way.

Especially in biomedical research, individual-level data must be protected due to the sensitivity of the data that is associated with patients. The broad goal of scientific data re-use is to allow many researchers to derive new hypotheses and insights from the data while preserving privacy. Data usage control (DUC) as an attribute-based access mechanism promises to overcome the limitations of traditional access control models achieving that goal. Park and Sandhu provided the usage control (UCON) model as an instance of DUC, which defines policies that evaluate certain attributes. Here, we present an UCON-based architecture, which is augmented with risk-based anonymization as provided by the R package sdcMicro and an extensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) environment with a core policy decision point as implemented by authzforce.

A domain-specific language for the specification of UCON policies

Security policies constrain the behavior of all users of an information system. In any non-trivial system, these security policies go beyond simple access control rules and must cover more complex and dynamic scenarios while providing, at the same time, a fine-grained level decision-making ability. The Usage Control model (UCON) was created for this purpose but so far integration of UCON in mainstream software engineering processes has been very limited, hampering its usefulness and popularity among the software and information systems communities. In this sense, this paper proposes a Domain-Specific Language to facilitate the modeling of UCON policies and their integration in (model-based) development processes. Together with the language, an exploratory approach for policy evaluation and enforcement of the modeled policies via model transformations has been introduced. These contributions have been defined on top of the Eclipse Modeling Framework, the de-facto standard MDE (Model-Driven Engineering) framework making them freely available and ready-to-use for any software designer interested in using UCON for the definition of security policies in their new development projects.

Specifying and verifying usage control models and policies in TLA$$^+$$

Novel computing paradigms, e.g., the Cloud, introduce new requirements with regard to access control such as utilization of historical information and continuity of decision. However, these concepts may introduce an additional level of complexity to the underpinning model, rendering its definition and verification a cumbersome and prone to errors process. Using a formal language to specify a model and formally verify it may lead to a rigorous definition of the interactions amongst its components, and the provision of formal guarantees for its correctness. In this paper, we consider a case study where we specify a formal model in TLA $$^+$$ for both a policy-neutral and policy-specific UseCON usage control model. Through that, we anticipate to shed light in the analysis and verification of usage control models and policies by sharing our experience when using TLA $$^+$$ specific tools.

A Novel Blockchain-Based Framework for Vehicle Life Cycle Tracking: An End-to-End Solution

Transactions related to vehicles include manufacturing, buying, selling, paying insurance(takaful), obtaining regular inspection, leasing a vehicle from banks, getting in an accident, engaging in a traffic violation, calculating price predictions and renting a vehicle. Many people perform transactions related to vehicles in their daily life; transportation authorities also perform vehicle transactions as part of managing vehicle fleets. But tracking these transactions is a challenging task. There are countrywide solutions that uses centralized systems. However, these solutions have problems with trust management, transparency, and access control. Therefore, we believe there is still room for integrated automation of various vehicle-related transactions. In this paper, we present a blockchain-based framework for vehicle tracking that incorporates the mentioned features. Moreover, blockchain is customized to enable usage control for additional transactions, such as inspection, renting and islamic insurance. The usage control model is integrated with IoT devices to continuously monitor the vehicles for certain conditions and remotely revoke access if needed. The complete transaction set is recorded over an immutable ledger that provides trust, transparency and a complete history of record. In this paper, we also presents a prototype implementation of a permissioned blockchain, which will be made available under the GNUv3 General Public License. Performance analysis is performed on the newly proposed framework implementation over the permissioned blockchain to measure its adoption and suitability.

An extended access control model for permissioned blockchain frameworks

In distributed environment, a digital transaction or operation requires transparency and trust among multiple stakeholders. Several approches address such issues however, among these blockchain provides a viable solution which has received wide acceptance in the recent past. Permissioned blockchain solutions adopt more efficient consensus algorithms and smart contracts. There are many smart-contract solutions exists (such as, etherium, IBM blockchain, hyperledger fabric), however, much of them mainly follow traditional access control models. A role-based access control model provides controlled access of resources to members. This research work presents an extended usage control model known as DistU (Distributed Usage Control). DistU is proposed to capture all possible access control models required by a business for permissioned blockchain frameworks. DistU can monitor a resource continuously during the operation and update the attributes accordingly, performing different actions, such as denying or revoking permissions. We believe that the proposed DistU usage control model can provide a fine-grained control for blockchain resource management. The paper also contributes to provide a protoype implementation of fine-grained permission model on Hyperledger Fabric. The reason of selecting Fabric for this research is that, it is the first execute-order achitecture blockchain that provides a platform to develop general business applciations. Secondly, it is an opensource operating system of permissioned blockchain with huge industry support.

An Architecture for Providing Data Usage and Access Control in Data Sharing Ecosystems

We are experiencing a new digital revolution in which data are becoming a key pillar for business and industry. Promoting data sharing, without compromising data sovereignty and traceability, is fundamental since it provides a heterogeneous ecosystem with the potential to enrich the variety of applications and services that take part in this digital revolution. In this scope, the use of secure and trusted platforms for sharing and processing personal and industrial data is crucial for the creation of a data market and a data economy. Protecting data goes beyond restricting who can access what resource (covered by identity and access control respectively): it becomes necessary to control how data are treated, which is known as data usage control. Data usage control provides a common and trustful security framework to guarantee the sovereignty and the responsible use of organizations’ data by third-party entities, easing and ensuring data sharing in ecosystems such as industry or smart cities. In this article, we present an architecture proposal for achieving access and usage control in shared data ecosystems among multiple organizations. The proposed architecture is based on the UCON (Usage Control) model and an extended XACML (eXtensible Access Control Markup Language) Reference Architecture, relying on key aspects of the IDS (International Data Spaces) Reference Architecture Model. Its modular design and technology-agnostic nature provide an integral solution while maintaining flexibility of implementation.

Formal Verification of Usage Control Models: A Case Study of UseCON Using TLA+

Usage control models provide an integration of access control, digital rights, and trust management. To achieve this integration, usage control models support additional concepts such as attribute mutability and continuity of decision. However, these concepts may introduce an additional level of complexity to the underlying model, rendering its definition a cumbersome and prone to errors process. Applying a formal verification technique allows for a rigorous analysis of the interactions amongst the components, and thus for formal guarantees in respect of the correctness of a model. In this paper, we elaborate on a case study, where we express the high-level functional model of the UseCON usage control model in the TLA+ formal specification language, and verify its correctness for <=12 uses in both of its supporting authorisation models.

Policy-based usage control for a trustworthy data sharing platform in smart cities

Although data is a key part in smart cities, traditionally there has been no systematic effort to enable the sharing of data in a trustworthy manner among applications or services. In order to promote sharing of data, mechanisms need to be put into place to provide the different actors — data producers, data consumers, etc. means to control and visualize how their data or requests are being processed and used. In this paper we deal with a key issue involved in trust which is usage control, i.e., how data is used once access to it has been granted. We propose a Data Usage Control Model (DUPO) to capture the diversity of obligations and constraints that data providers impose on the use of their data. Based on the DUPO model and semantic technologies, we propose a trustworthy data sharing platform which enhances transparency and traceability of data usage in smart cities. Lastly a proof-of-concept is developed to evaluate our solution and results show that the performance of the added trust does not impact negatively on the system.

Safety Decidability for Pre-Authorization Usage Control with Finite Attribute Domains

This paper considers the safety problem for the pre-authorization sub-model of the well-known <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$UCON_{ABC}$</tex-math></inline-formula> usage control model, that is, <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$Pre\_UCON_A$ </tex-math></inline-formula> . It is shown that <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$Pre\_UCON_A$</tex-math></inline-formula> with finite attribute domains has decidable safety even if arbitrary object creation is allowed. This result eliminates the previously known restrictions for obtaining safety decidability in this context, which only allow a finite bounded number of objects to be created. Our result specifically permits unbounded object creation, so the set of objects is potentially infinite. In the proof, we show that the set of reachable protection tuples in infinite state <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$Pre\_UCON_A$</tex-math></inline-formula> models is finite and computable. We also provide a construction for decision procedure which answers the safety question by examining the reachable protection tuples.

A HIGH PERFORMANCE UCON AND SEMANTIC-BASED AUTHORIZATION FRAMEWORK FOR GRID COMPUTING

Authorization infrastructures are an important and integral part of grid computing which facilitate access control functions to protect resources. This paper presents an authorization framework that combines the usage control (UCON) model with semantic web technology. To our knowledge, an authorization framework that combines both the UCON and semantic web technology in one framework has not yet been previously proposed. As the UCON model combines traditional access control, trust management and digital rights management in a grid authorization infrastructure, its adoption enhances the capability of the authorization. However, UCON-based authorization presents a problem in controlling the policy granularity and minimizing the authorization overhead due to complexity in the policies inherited from the UCON model. The growing number of users and resources in the grid makes this problem even worse. We use the semantic web technology to provide a way to automatically manage the rules in the policies, hence keeping the granularity under control. To minimize the authorization overhead, a new mechanism to reduce the number of policy checks is proposed in this paper. Our simulation result shows that the proposed mechanism provides a 63% reduction in rule checking compared to previous methods.

Usage Control on Cloud systems

Cloud Computing is becoming increasingly popular because of its peculiarities, such as the availability on demand of (a large amount of) resources, even for a long time. For this reason, Cloud Computing represents a good solution for those companies that want to outsource part of their software processes. However, Cloud Computing introduces new security and management challenges with respect to traditional systems exposed on the Internet. This paper presents an advanced authorization service based on the Usage Control model to regulate the usage of Cloud resources, focussing on IaaS services.Our framework addresses the issue of long lasting usage of resources, because it allows to define Usage Control policies which are continuously enforced while the access is in progress. In particular, our framework is able to interrupt the usage of such resources when the corresponding policy is not satisfied any more. In this paper, we present the architecture of the proposed framework describing the integration of a Usage Control based authorization service within one of the most popular software for running Cloud services: OpenNebula. Moreover, we describe the implementation of a prototype of the whole framework, along with some performance figures.

Enforcement of CA-UCON Model

A CA-UCON (Context-Aware Usage CONtrol) model is an extension of the traditional UCON (Usage CONtrol) model which enables adaptation to environmental changes in the aim of preserving continuity of access. When the authorisations and obligations requirements are met by the subject and the object, and the conditions requirements fail due to changes in the environment or the system context, CA-UCON model triggers specific actions to adapt to the new situation. Besides the data protection, CA-UCON model also enhances the quality of services, striving to keep explicit interactions with the user at a minimum. In this paper, we propose an architecture of the reference monitor for the CA-UCON model and investigate a variety of enforcement approaches in ubiquitous computing systems; whether centralised, distributed or hybrid; depending on applications.

ENHANCING THE PERFORMANCE OF ADVANCED FINE-GRAINED GRID AUTHORIZATION SYSTEM

Grid computing is a system that coordinates distributed resources using standards, open, general purpose protocols and interfaces to provide nontrivial quality of services. Usage Control model (UCON) is a new emerging authorization framework that combined features of traditional access control, trust management and digital right management in one abstraction. Adoption of UCON improved the fine-grain of grid authorization policy. The major problem of the UCON based authorization is the finer-grain the authorization, the higher overhead will be impacted to the system. This is because fine-grained authorization required very complex policies to define rules accurately. To evaluate complex policies is very time consuming as the system needs to check rules by rules in each policy for each resource in order to produce the access result, resulting in lower authorization performance. This limitation is crucial for large collaborative environment like grid where user and resource keep increasing year by year. Therefore, a mechanism to reduce the number of checking during authorization process is needed. In this study we propose a mechanism to reduce the number of rules checking by eliminating irrelevant set of rules. The irrelevant rules are determined by the dependency of rules model. Our simulation result shows that our technique able to further reduce the number of rules checking in grid authorization system compared to previous method. The checking process also can be skipped for certain rules using our method.

CooPeD: Co-owned Personal Data management

With the spread of Web-Based Social Networks (WBSNs) managing access to data is a challenging matter. Providing personalized, fine-grained access control is essential to build trusted WBSNs. WBSNs data can be associated with owners and co-owners, namely users who upload the data and users who are linked to uploaded data respectively. Thus, a privacy-friendly WBSN must allow users the management of elements related to them. In this regard, CooPeD (Co-owned Personal Data management), a system that deals with co-ownership management of decomposable objects, is proposed. CooPeD is formed by a model and a mechanism. CooPeD is developed on the bases of SoNeUCONABC usage control model. Particularly, an extension of SoNeUCONABC is proposed to support co-ownership management by means of access control and administrative management. In CooPeD's mechanism objects, decomposed in parts, are attached to owners and co-owners who individually set their access control preferences. The evaluation of CooPeD consists of three parts. Firstly, a feasibility analysis for different architectures of CooPeD's model and mechanism, as well as of CooPeD's mechanism in Facebook is performed. Secondly, a prototype proves the feasibility of implementing CooPeD. Lastly, a survey study assesses the acceptance of CooPeD.

SoNeUCONABC, an expressive usage control model for Web-Based Social Networks

In the era of hyper-connectivity Web-Based Social Networks (WBSNs) are demanding applications. They facilitate the interaction of huge amounts of users and the development of appropriate Access Control Models (ACMs) is an arising necessity. Particularly, the development of WBSNs ACMs with expressive power and capable of managing access control along the whole usage process is the challenge pursued. To contribute on this issue, first, 23 proposals have been analysed and second, SoNeUCONABC, an expressive usage control model for WBSNs, is proposed. It extends UCONABC (Park, 2003) including relationships management and it is formally defined, specifying entities and elements involved and an access control policy language. Moreover, policy construction is carefully detailed by using regular expressions and access control enforcement functions are described. Finally, the evaluation shows, theoretically, the significant expressive power of SoNeUCONABC and, empirically, the feasibility of its implementation by the development of a proof of concept system.

Applied Technology for Usage Control Model in Pervasive Computing

During the applications development of pervasive computing, access control is new demands advanced by pervasive computing. Usage Control models are used to solve access control. This paper uses these models to solve problem of access control in Pervasive Computing environment and provides a model of Usage Control in Pervasive Computing (UCONpc), context information and delegation rights satisfy the features of access control in pervasive computing system.