Skip to main content

On the Design of Access Control to Prevent Sensitive Information Leakage in Distributed Object Systems: A Colored Petri Net Based Model

  • Conference paper
On the Move to Meaningful Internet Systems 2005: CoopIS, DOA, and ODBASE (OTM 2005)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 3761))

Abstract

We introduce a Colored Petri Net model for simulating and verifying information flow in distributed object systems. Access control is specified as prescribed by the OMG CORBA security specification. An insecure flow arises when information is transferred from one object to another in violation of the applied security policy. We provide precise definitions, which determine how discretionary access control is related to the secure or insecure transfer of information between objects. The model can be queried regarding the detected information flow paths and their dependencies. This is a valuable mean for the design of multilevel mandatory access control that addresses the problem of enforcing object classification constraints to prevent undesirable leakage and inference of sensitive information.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Chou, S.-C.: Information flow control among objects: Taking foreign objects into control. In: Proceedings of the 36th Hawaii International Conference on Systems Sciences (HICSS 2003), pp. 335a–344a. IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Christensen, S., Petrucci, L.: Modular state space analysis of Coloured Petri Nets. In: Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Application and Theory of Petri Nets, Turin, Italy, pp. 201–217 (1995)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Dawson, S., Vimercati, S., Lincoln, P., Samarati, P.: Maximizing sharing of protected information. Journal of Computer and System Sciences 64(3), 496–541 (2002)

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  4. Georgiadis, C., Mavridis, I., Pangalos, G.: Healthcare teams over the Internet: Programming a certificate-based approach. International Journal of Medical Informatics 70, 161–171 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Halkidis, S.T., Chatzigeorgiou, A., Stephanides, G.: A qualitative evaluation of security patterns. In: López, J., Qing, S., Okamoto, E. (eds.) ICICS 2004. LNCS, vol. 3269, pp. 132–144. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  6. Izaki, K., Tanaka, K., Takizawa, M.: Information flow control in role-based model for distributed objects. In: Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Systems (ICPADS 2001), Kyongju City, Korea, pp. 363–370. IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos (2001)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  7. Jensen, K.: An introduction to the practical use of colored Petri Nets. In: Reisig, W., Rozenberg, G. (eds.) APN 1998. LNCS, vol. 1492, pp. 237–292. Springer, Heidelberg (1998)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  8. Jensen, K.: An introduction to the theoretical aspects of colored Petri Nets. In: de Bakker, J.W., de Roever, W.-P., Rozenberg, G. (eds.) REX 1993. LNCS, vol. 803, pp. 230–272. Springer, Heidelberg (1994)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Karjoth, G.: Authorization in CORBA security. In: Quisquater, J.-J., Deswarte, Y., Meadows, C., Gollmann, D. (eds.) ESORICS 1998. LNCS, vol. 1485, pp. 143–158. Springer, Heidelberg (1998)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  10. Lampson, B.W.: A note on the confinement problem. Communication of the ACM 16(10), 613–615 (1973)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Larsen, L., Harrold, M.: Slicing object oriented software. In: Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Software Engineering, pp. 495–505 (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Masri, W., Podgurski, A., Leon, D.: Detecting and debugging insecure information flows. In: Proceedings of the 15th International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE 2004), Saint-Malo, Bretagne, France, pp. 198–209. IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Object Management Group: Security service specification, version 1.7, OMG Document 99-12-02 (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Samarati, P., Bertino, E., Ciampichetti, A., Jajodia, S.: Information flow control in object-oriented systems. IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering 9(4), 524–538 (1997)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Sandhu, R.S.: Lattice-based access control models. IEEE Computer 26(11), 9–19 (1993)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Yasuda, M., Tachikawa, T., Takizawa, M.: Information flow in a purpose-oriented access control model. In: Proceedings of the 1997 International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Systems (ICPADS 1997), Seoul, Korea, pp. 244–249. IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos (1997)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Katsaros, P. (2005). On the Design of Access Control to Prevent Sensitive Information Leakage in Distributed Object Systems: A Colored Petri Net Based Model. In: Meersman, R., Tari, Z. (eds) On the Move to Meaningful Internet Systems 2005: CoopIS, DOA, and ODBASE. OTM 2005. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3761. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11575801_2

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11575801_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-29738-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-32120-0

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics