The Computational Complexity of Enforceability Validation for Generic Access Control Rules

In computer security, many researches have tackled on the possibility of a unified model of access control, which could enforce any access control policies within a single unified system. One issue that must be considered is the efficiency of such systems, i.e., what is the computational complexity for the enforceability validation of access control rules of a system that is capable of implementing any access control policy? We investigate this question by arguing that two fundamental requirements exist for any such system: satisfiability of access rules and ensuring absence of deadlock among rules. We then show that both of these problems are NP-Complete by using some basic computational theorems applied to the components of the generic access control process.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2006
• Where: SUTC
• Authors: Vincent C. Hu, D. Richard Kuhn, David F. Ferraiolo
• Keywords: Access Control, Access Control Policies, Access Control Rules, SUTC 2006