1. Dynamic Access Control Policy Management for Web Applications
Misbah Irum
NUST-MS-CCS-21
Supervisor:
Dr.Abdul Ghafoor Abbasi

2. Agenda Overview Introduction Existing work Problem statement
Abstract Architecture
Workflow
Roadmap
References

3. Overview
The rapidly developing web environment provides users with a wide set of rich services as varied and complex as desktop applications.
This allow users to create, manage and share their content online.
It is the user who creates this data, who disseminates it and who shares it with other users and services.
Storing and sharing resources on the Web poses new security challenges. Access control in particular, is currently poorly addressed in such an environment

4. Introduction
Access control (authorization) protects resources against unauthorized disclosure and unauthorized or improper modifications.
It ensures that any access to resources or data is according to access control policies of the system.

5. Introduction
As the web evolved user is storing and sharing more and more resources on the web.
Access control provided by the web application is tightly bound to the functionality of the application and is not flexible and according to the security requirements of the user.
User control the resources according to the limited access control options provided by these web applications which can result in loss of privacy and may raise other security concerns like theft, fraud etc.

6. Introduction
As the Web has evolved it has become exceedingly user-centric and user-driven.
It has recently adopted a user centric identity model where authentication is delegated to third party Identity Providers (IdP) using such protocols as OpenID or Shibboleth .
However, the Web still lacks a comparable access control solution based on concepts analogous to OpenID. Such a mechanism would allow users to choose their preferred access control components and use their functionality for various Web applications

7. Literature Survey
For the purposed work literature survey is to be carried out in two parts:
Research been done on user-centric access control
Access control in traditional web applications

8. xAccess: A Unified User-Centric Access Control Framework for Web Applications
In this research Kapil Singh provides a user centric access control framework. It allows the user to set access control on their content which they upload on web applications.
Analysis:
Can only be used with the applications which has installed the xAccess server component.
Not generic and can not meet all the access requirements of the user. E.g. section level access control etc.
Singh, K.“ xAccess: A unified user-centric access control framework for web applications," Network Operations and Management Symposium (NOMS),, pp , April 2012

9. Architecture and Protocol for User-Controlled Access Management in Web 2.0 Applications
Machulak and Moorsel presented this paper in the 2010 IEEE 30th International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems.
Analysis:
No authentication, only deals with authorization.
Working of authorization Manager is not explained.
Too many steps involved which increases the complexity .
Machulak, M.P., van Moorsel, A., "Architecture and Protocol for User-Controlled Access Management in Web 2.0 Applications" . 30th International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems Workshops (ICDCSW), pp.62-71, June 2010.

10. Policy Management as a Service: An Approach to Manage Policy Heterogeneity in Cloud Computing Environment
This paper was presented in th Hawaii International conference on system sciences. In this research Takabi and Joshi provides policy management as a service in cloud computing environment.
Analysis:
Only policy specification service is provided.
Exporting policies into CSP is a complex task and interoperability is a big issue.
If user removes the content from one application and move to another application the removal and exportation of policies have to be done.
Takabi, H., Joshi, J.B.D., "Policy Management as a Service: An Approach to Manage Policy Heterogeneity in Cloud Computing Environment”. 45th Hawaii International Conference on System Science (HICSS) , pp , 4-7 Jan,

11. Oauth 2.0 protocol Resource Owner Client Authorization Server
Oath is an open standard for authorization. It is an authorization delegation protocol.
users delegate limited access of their content to other third party applications .
Only provide access delegation services.
User cannot write access policies and protect their resources according to their access requirements.
1.Authorization request
Client
Resource Owner
2. Authorization grant
3.Authorization grant
Authorization Server
4.Access Token
5.Access Token
Resource Server
6.Protected Resource

12. Access Control in Traditional Web Applications
Access control provided by web application resides within the web application.
User is provided with certain Access control options.
User sets access control on its own resource from these options.

13. Problems
Some of the problems found in the access control provided by web services are as follows:
Access control lacks sophistication since it is a side issue for typical cloud-based Web 2.0 applications.
User needs to use many diverse and possibly incompatible policy languages.
User needs to use many diverse and bespoke policy management tools with diversified User Experience.
User lacks a consolidated view of the applied access control policies across multiple Web applications.

14. Problem Statement
Design a secure and generic User Control Access Management protocol which facilitates the user to dynamically define access control policies on their self generated resources and their sharing to authorized users through web services.

15. Abstract Architecture
Authentication Server
IDMS
Authorization Server
Policy Database
Policy Engine
Web Server
User
Access Control Policy
Protected
Resources
Requestor

16. Authentication Server
Work Flow
Authentication Server
3.2. Identity info
3.1. ticket
IDMS
Authorization Server
1.1. Identity info
Policy Database
Policy Engine
1.2. ticket
2.4. upload policies
Requestor
User
Access Control Policy
4.4 query for decision
4.5. Access control decision
4.1. ticket
2.3. create policy
4.2 Application access
2.1. ticket
Web Server
4.3 Access request
Protected
Resources
2.2 Application access
4.6. Resource
2.5. upload resource

17. Standard and Technologies
Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) – web services security standard
Extensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML 3.0)- policy specification
FIPS 196- authentication
Google docs- web service

18. Thesis Road Map Detailed Design Milestones Duration
Preliminary Study and Research
Done
Detailed Design
2 weeks
Implementation
1.1implementing authentication protocol
1 month
1.2 Creating Access control Policy module
1.3 implementing authorization server
1.4 implementation of final framework incorporating user-centric authorization model
Testing and evaluation
Thesis writing

19. References
Fugkeaw, S. Manpanpanich, P., Juntapremjitt, S., "A development of multi-SSO authentication and RBAC model in the distributed systems”. 2nd International Conference on Digital Information Management , pp , Oct,
Sunan Shen, Shaohua Tang , "Cross-Domain Grid Authentication and Authorization Scheme Based on Trust Management and Delegation”. International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Security, vol.1, pp , Dec, 2008.
Osio, G., "A User Perspective on Cloud Computing“. Third International Conference on Advances in Human-Oriented and Personalized Mechanisms, Technologies and Services, pp.1-4, Aug, 2010.
Ting Zhang, WenAn Tan, "Role-based dynamic access control for Web services ", International Conference on Computer Application and System Modeling (ICCASM), vol.4, pp.V4-507-V4-510, Oct, 2010.
Laborde, R., Cheaito, M., Barrere, F., Benzekri, A., "An Extensible XACML Authorization Web Service: Application to Dynamic Web Sites Access Control”. Fifth International Conference on Signal-Image Technology & Internet-Based Systems (SITIS), pp , Nov Dec

20. References
Jing Gao, Bin Zhang, Zhiyu Ren , "A dynamic authorization model based on security label and role”. IEEE International Conference on Information Theory and Information Security (ICITIS), pp , Dec, 2010.
Fei Xu, Jingsha He, Xu Wu, Jing Xu , "A User-Centric Privacy Access Control Model”. 2nd International Symposium on Information Engineering and Electronic Commerce (IEEC), pp.1-4, July, 2010.
Gail-Joon Ahn, Moonam Ko, Shehab, M., "Privacy-Enhanced User-Centric Identity Management”. IEEE International Conference on Communications, pp.1-5, June, 2009.
Becker, M.Y., "Specification and Analysis of Dynamic Authorization Policies”. 22nd IEEE Computer Security Foundations Symposium, pp , 8-10 July, 2009.
Xiangrong Zu, Lianzhong Liu, Yan Bai, "A Role and Task-Based Workflow Dynamic Authorization Modeling and Enforcement Mechanism" .1st International Conference on Information Science and Engineering (ICISE), pp , Dec, 2009.
Procha´zka, M., Kouril, D.,Matyska, L., "User centric authentication for web applications” . International Symposium on Collaborative Technologies and Systems (CTS), , pp.67-74, May, 2010.

21. References http:// www.oauth.net http:// www.wikipedia.org/wiki/OAuth
curity_System.pdf
Architecture.pdf

22. Questions
&
Suggestions