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A reference monitor for workflow systems with constrained task execution

Published:01 June 2005Publication History

ABSTRACT

We describe a model, independent of any underlying access control paradigm, for specifying authorization constraints such as separation of duty and cardinality constraints in workflow systems. We present a number of results enabling us to simplify the set of authorization constraints. These results form the theoretical foundation for an algorithm that can be used to determine whether a given constrained workflow can be satisfied: that is, does there exist an assignment of authorized users to workflow tasks that satisfies the authorization constraints? We show that this algorithm can be incorporated into a workflow reference monitor that guarantees that every workflow instance can complete. We derive the computational complexity of our algorithm and compare its performance to comparable work in the literature.

References

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        • Published in

          cover image ACM Conferences
          SACMAT '05: Proceedings of the tenth ACM symposium on Access control models and technologies
          June 2005
          186 pages
          ISBN:1595930450
          DOI:10.1145/1063979
          • General Chair:
          • Elena Ferrari,
          • Program Chair:
          • Gail-Joon Ahn

          Copyright © 2005 ACM

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          Association for Computing Machinery

          New York, NY, United States

          Publication History

          • Published: 1 June 2005

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