Hierarchical and Shared Access Control
Abstract of Hierarchical and Shared Access Control
Hierarchical and Shared Access Control.Access control ensures that only the authorized users of a system are allowed to access certain resources or tasks. Usually, according to their roles and responsibilities, users are organized in hierarchies formed by a certain number of disjoint classes. Such hierarchies are implemented by assigning a key to each class, so that the keys for descendant classes can be efficiently derived from classes higher in the hierarchy. However, pure hierarchical access may represent a limitation in many real-world cases.
Conclusion
In this Hierarchical and Shared Access Control paper we have proposed an access control model with some innovative features. In particular, starting from the consideration that in some cases, besides the conventional hierarchical access, access should be granted to some qualified sets of users, the above model provides the user with the ability to prevent abuse of permissions, to define alternative access methods and to allow the separation of duties. Such a novel access model finds a natural field of application in several contexts. In general, our model characterizes any scenario where more than one entity is required to gain a specific authorization.
