Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Process Algebra Can Save Lives: Static Analysis of XACML Access Control Policies Using mCRL2

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Formal Techniques for Distributed Objects, Components, and Systems (FORTE 2022)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 13273))

Abstract

This paper proposes an approach to formally verify XACML policies using the process algebra mCRL2. XACML (eXtensible Access Control Markup Language) is an OASIS standard for access control systems that is much used in health care due to its fine-grained, attribute-based policy definitions, useful in dynamic environments such as emergency wards. A notorious problem in XACML is the detection of conflicts, which arise especially when combining policies, such as when health institutions merge. Our formal translation of XACML policies into mCRL2, using our automated tool XACML2mCRL2, enables us to verify the above property, called consistency, as well as other policy properties such as completeness and obligation enforcement. Verifying policy properties statically allows us to resolve inconsistencies in advance, thus avoiding situations where an access request is denied in a critical situation (e.g., in an ambulance, when lives may be put in danger) just because of incomplete or inconsistent policies. The mCRL2 toolset is especially useful for modeling behaviors of interactive systems, where XACML would be only one part. Therefore, we verify an access control system together with the intended health care system that it is supposed to protect. For this, we exemplify how to verify safety and liveness properties of an assisted living and community care system.

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

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 59.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 79.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    The XACML version of all the rules and the corresponding mCRL2 specifications generated using our XACML2mCRL2 tool are available in [4].

  2. 2.

    EU Horizon 2020 ECSEL Joint Undertaking project SCOTT – Secure COnnected Trustable Things (https://scottproject.eu/).

References

  1. Aceto, L., Ingólfsdóttir, A., Larsen, K.G., Srba, J.: Reactive Systems: Modelling. Cambridge University Press, Specification and Verification, Cambridge (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Ahn, G., Hu, H., Lee, J., Meng, Y.: Representing and reasoning about web access control policies. In: Proceedings of the 34th Annual IEEE International Computer Software and Applications Conference, COMPSAC 2010, Seoul, Korea, 19–23 July 2010, pp. 137–146. IEEE Computer Society (2010). https://doi.org/10.1109/COMPSAC.2010.20

  3. Al-Issa, Y., Ottom, M.A., Tamrawi, A.: eHealth cloud security challenges: a survey. J. Healthcare Eng. 2019, 1–15 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/7516035

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Arshad, H., Horne, R., Johansen, C., Owe, O., Willemse, T.A.C.: GitHub repository for "Process Algebra Can Save Lives: Static Analysis of XACML Access Control Policies using mCRL2" (2022). https://github.com/haamedarshad/XACML2mCRL2

  5. Bryans, J.W.: Reasoning about XACML policies using CSP. In: Proceedings of the 2nd ACM Workshop On Secure Web Services, SWS 2005, Fairfax, VA, USA, November 11, 2005, pp. 28–35. ACM (2005). https://doi.org/10.1145/1103022.1103028

  6. Bryant, R.E.: Graph-based algorithms for Boolean function manipulation. IEEE Trans. Comput. 35(8), 677–691 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1109/TC.1986.1676819

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  7. Bunte, O., et al.: The mCRL2 toolset for analysing concurrent systems. In: Vojnar, T., Zhang, L. (eds.) TACAS 2019. LNCS, vol. 11428, pp. 21–39. Springer, Cham (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17465-1_2

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  8. Cantor, S., Moreh, J., Philpott, R., Maler, E.: Metadata for the OASIS security assertion markup language (SAML) V2.0 (2005). http://docs.oasis-open.org/security/saml/v2.0/

  9. Fisler, K., Krishnamurthi, S., Meyerovich, L.A., Tschantz, M.C.: Verification and change-impact analysis of access-control policies. In: 27th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE 2005), 15–21 May 2005, St. Louis, Missouri, USA, pp. 196–205. ACM (2005). https://doi.org/10.1145/1062455.1062502

  10. Fokkink, W.: Modelling Distributed Systems. Springer, Heidelberg (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-73938-8

  11. Fujita, M., McGeer, P.C., Yang, J.Y.: Multi-terminal binary decision diagrams: an efficient data structure for matrix representation. Formal Methods Syst. Des. 10(2), 149–169 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008647823331

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Groote, J.F., Keiren, J.J.A.: Tutorial: designing distributed software in mCRL2. In: Peters, K., Willemse, T.A.C. (eds.) FORTE 2021. LNCS, vol. 12719, pp. 226–243. Springer, Cham (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78089-0_15

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  13. Groote, J.F., Keiren, J.J.A., Luttik, B., de Vink, E.P., Willemse, T.A.C.: Modelling and analysing software in mCRL2. In: Arbab, F., Jongmans, S.-S. (eds.) FACS 2019. LNCS, vol. 12018, pp. 25–48. Springer, Cham (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40914-2_2

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  14. Groote, J.F., Mousavi, M.R.: Modeling and Analysis of Communicating Systems. MIT Press, Cambridge (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Hathaliya, J.J., Tanwar, S.: An exhaustive survey on security and privacy issues in Healthcare 4.0. Comput. Commun. 153, 311–335 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comcom.2020.02.018

  16. Hoare, C.A.R.: Communicating sequential processes. Commun. ACM 21(8), 666–677 (1978). https://doi.org/10.1145/359576.359585

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  17. Hu, H., Ahn, G., Kulkarni, K.: Anomaly discovery and resolution in web access control policies. In: 16th ACM Symposium on Access Control Models and Technologies, SACMAT 2011, Innsbruck, Austria, June 15–17, 2011, Proceedings, pp. 165–174. ACM (2011). https://doi.org/10.1145/1998441.1998472

  18. Hu, V.C., et al.: Guide to attribute based access control (ABAC) definition and considerations. NIST Spec. Publ. (SP) 800(162), 1–47 (2014). https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.800-162

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Kolovski, V., Hendler, J.A., Parsia, B.: Analyzing web access control policies. In: Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on World Wide Web, WWW 2007, Banff, Alberta, Canada, May 8–12, 2007, pp. 677–686. ACM (2007). https://doi.org/10.1145/1242572.1242664

  20. Lifschitz, V.: What Is Answer Set Programming? In: Proceedings of the Twenty-Third AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, AAAI 2008, Chicago, Illinois, USA, July 13–17, 2008, pp. 1594–1597. AAAI Press (2008). http://www.aaai.org/Library/AAAI/2008/aaai08-270.php

  21. Lin, D., Rao, P., Bertino, E., Li, N., Lobo, J.: EXAM: a comprehensive environment for the analysis of access control policies. Int. J. Inf. Sec. 9(4), 253–273 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10207-010-0106-1

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Marek, V.W., Truszczynski, M.: Stable models and an alternative logic programming paradigm. In: The Logic Programming Paradigm - A 25-Year Perspective, pp. 375–398. Artificial Intelligence, Springer, Cham (1999). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-60085-2_17

  23. Morisset, C., Willemse, T.A.C., Zannone, N.: A framework for the extended evaluation of ABAC policies. Cybersecurity 2(1), 1–21 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s42400-019-0024-0

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Parducci, B., Lockhart, H., Rissanen, E.: Extensible access control markup language (XACML) version 3.0. OASIS Standard, pp. 1–154 (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  25. Ramli, C.D.P.K., Nielson, H.R., Nielson, F.: The logic of XACML. Sci. Comput. Program. 83, 80–105 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scico.2013.05.003

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Rao, P., Lin, D., Bertino, E., Li, N., Lobo, J.: An algebra for fine-grained integration of XACML policies. In: 14th ACM Symposium on Access Control Models and Technologies, SACMAT 2009, Stresa, Italy, June 3–5, 2009, Proceedings, pp. 63–72. ACM (2009). https://doi.org/10.1145/1542207.1542218

  27. Ray, I., Ong, T.C., Ray, I., Kahn, M.G.: Applying attribute based access control for privacy preserving health data disclosure. In: IEEE-EMBS International Conference on Biomedical and Health Informatics (BHI), pp. 1–4. IEEE, Las Vegas, NV, USA (2016). https://doi.org/10.1109/BHI.2016.7455820

  28. Turkmen, F., den Hartog, J., Ranise, S., Zannone, N.: Formal analysis of XACML policies using SMT. Comput. Secur. 66, 185–203 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cose.2017.01.009

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Hamed Arshad & Olaf Owe

  2. University of Luxembourg, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg

    Ross Horne

  3. Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Gjøvik, Norway

    Christian Johansen

  4. Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, Netherlands

    Tim A. C. Willemse

Authors
  1. Hamed Arshad
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Ross Horne
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Christian Johansen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Olaf Owe
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Tim A. C. Willemse
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hamed Arshad .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. King's College London, London, UK

    Mohammad Reza Mousavi

  2. University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus

    Anna Philippou

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2022 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Arshad, H., Horne, R., Johansen, C., Owe, O., Willemse, T.A.C. (2022). Process Algebra Can Save Lives: Static Analysis of XACML Access Control Policies Using mCRL2. In: Mousavi, M.R., Philippou, A. (eds) Formal Techniques for Distributed Objects, Components, and Systems. FORTE 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13273. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08679-3_2

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08679-3_2

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-08678-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-08679-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Societies and partnerships

Search

Navigation