A Declarative Fine-grained Role-based Access Control Model and Mechanism for the Web Application Domain

Seyed Hossein Ghotbi, Bernd Fischer

2012

Abstract

Access control policies such as role-based access control (RBAC) enforce desirable security properties, in particular for Web-based applications with many different users. A fine-grained RBAC model gives the developers of such systems more customization and administrative power to control access to fine-granular elements such as individual cells of a table. However, the definition and deployment of such policies is not straightforward, and in many Web applications, they are hand-coded in the database or scattered throughout the application’s implementation, without taking advantage of underlying central elements, such as the data model or object types. This paper presents FRBAC, a fine-grained RBAC model for the Web application domain. FRBAC achieves separation of concerns for enforcing access to a range of objects with mixed-granularity levels. Moreover, it provides a unique testing mechanism that gives a guarantee to the developer about the correctness, completeness, and sufficiency of the defined FRBAC model, both internally and in the context of its target application. We use code generation techniques to compile the specification of a FRBAC model down to the existing tiers of an existing domain-specific Web programming language, WebDSL. We show the benefits of FRBAC on the development of a departmental Web site.

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Paper Citation


in Harvard Style

Hossein Ghotbi S. and Fischer B. (2012). A Declarative Fine-grained Role-based Access Control Model and Mechanism for the Web Application Domain . In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Software Paradigm Trends - Volume 1: ICSOFT, ISBN 978-989-8565-19-8, pages 80-91. DOI: 10.5220/0004083400800091


in Bibtex Style

@conference{icsoft12,
author={Seyed Hossein Ghotbi and Bernd Fischer},
title={A Declarative Fine-grained Role-based Access Control Model and Mechanism for the Web Application Domain},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Software Paradigm Trends - Volume 1: ICSOFT,},
year={2012},
pages={80-91},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0004083400800091},
isbn={978-989-8565-19-8},
}


in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Software Paradigm Trends - Volume 1: ICSOFT,
TI - A Declarative Fine-grained Role-based Access Control Model and Mechanism for the Web Application Domain
SN - 978-989-8565-19-8
AU - Hossein Ghotbi S.
AU - Fischer B.
PY - 2012
SP - 80
EP - 91
DO - 10.5220/0004083400800091