We consider the problem of access privilege management in a classical protection environment featuring subjects attempting to access the protected objects. We express an access privilege in terms of an access right and a privilege level. The privilege level and a protection diagram associated with each given object determine whether a nominal access privilege for this object corresponds to an effective, possibly weaker access privilege, or is revoked. We associate a password system with each object; the password system takes the form of a hierarchical bidimensional one-way chain. A subject possesses a nominal access privilege for a given object if it holds a key that matches one of the passwords in the password system of this object; the protection diagram determines the extent of the corresponding effective access privilege. The resulting protection environment has several interesting properties. A key reduction mechanism allows a subject that holds a key for a given object to distribute keys for weaker access rights at lower privilege levels. A subject that owns a given object can review or revoke the passwords for this object by simply modifying the protection diagram. The memory requirements to represent a protection diagram are negligible; as far as password storage is concerned, space-time trade-offs are possible.

Password management: distribution, review and revocation

LOPRIORE, LANFRANCO
2015-01-01

Abstract

We consider the problem of access privilege management in a classical protection environment featuring subjects attempting to access the protected objects. We express an access privilege in terms of an access right and a privilege level. The privilege level and a protection diagram associated with each given object determine whether a nominal access privilege for this object corresponds to an effective, possibly weaker access privilege, or is revoked. We associate a password system with each object; the password system takes the form of a hierarchical bidimensional one-way chain. A subject possesses a nominal access privilege for a given object if it holds a key that matches one of the passwords in the password system of this object; the protection diagram determines the extent of the corresponding effective access privilege. The resulting protection environment has several interesting properties. A key reduction mechanism allows a subject that holds a key for a given object to distribute keys for weaker access rights at lower privilege levels. A subject that owns a given object can review or revoke the passwords for this object by simply modifying the protection diagram. The memory requirements to represent a protection diagram are negligible; as far as password storage is concerned, space-time trade-offs are possible.
2015
Lopriore, Lanfranco
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11568/678320
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