Web services access control architecture incorporating trust

Purpose – This paper seeks to investigate how the concept of a trust level is used in the access control policy of a web services provider in conjunction with the attributes of users. Design/methodology/approach – A literature review is presented to provide background to the progressive role that trust plays in access control architectures. The web services access control architecture is defined. Findings – The architecture of an access control service of a web service provider consists of three components, namely an authorisation interface, an authorisation manager, and a trust manager. Access control and trust policies are selectively published according to the trust levels of web services requestors. A prototype highlights the incorporation of a trust level in the access control policy as a viable solution to the problem of web services access control, where decisions of an autonomous nature need to 

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2007
• Where: INTR
• Authors: Marijke Coetzee, Jan H. P. Eloff
• Keywords: Access Control, Access Control Architecture, INTR 2007, Trust Level