Imposing Fine-grain Next Generation Access Control over Database Queries

Published

May 25, 2017

Author(s)

David F. Ferraiolo, Serban I. Gavrila, Gopi Katwala, Joshua D. Roberts

Abstract

In this paper we describe a system that leverages ANSI/INCITS Next Generation Access Control (NGAC) standard called Next-generation Database Access Control (NDAC) for accessing data in tables, rows, and columns in existing RDBMS products. NDAC imposes access control at the data level, removing the need for implementing and managing access control in applications, and/or through the use of proprietary RDBMS mechanisms. As a consequence, the same policies can protect multiple databases from queries sent from multiple applications. Furthermore, NDAC not only provides control down to the field level, but to varying fields of select rows. NDAC is unique in achieving this granularity of control without the use of generation of policy- preserving 'where' clauses and masking or data redaction techniques. Operationally, users issue wide sweeping queries and NDAC allows access to the optimal amount of data permissible for the user. The method includes an Access Manager for trapping and enforcing policy over SQL queries issued by applications and a Translator for converting SQL statements to NGAC inputs and converting NGAC authorization responses to either an access Deny or one or more permitted SQL statements.

Conference Dates

March 22-24, 2017

Conference Location

Scottsdale, AZ

Conference Title

2nd ACM Workshop on Attribute Based Access Control

Pub Type

Conferences

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1145/3041048.3041050

Keywords

ABAC, NGAC, Policy Machine, DBMS, Access Control

Citation

Ferraiolo, D. , Gavrila, S. , Katwala, G. and Roberts, J. (2017), Imposing Fine-grain Next Generation Access Control over Database Queries, 2nd ACM Workshop on Attribute Based Access Control, Scottsdale, AZ, [online], https://doi.org/10.1145/3041048.3041050 (Accessed October 11, 2025)