Abstract

This talk will provide a perspective on attribute-based access control (ABAC). The ongoing authorization leap from rights to attributes offers numerous compelling benefits. Decisions about user, subject, object and context attributes can be made relatively independently and with suitable decentralization appropriate for each attribute. Policies can be formulated by security architects to translate from attributes to rights. Dynamic elements can be built into these policies so the outcomes of access control decisions automatically adapt to changing local and global circumstances. On the benefits side this leap is a maturation of authorization matching the needs of emerging cyber technologies and systems. On the risks side devolving attribute management may lead to attributes of questionable provenance and value, with attendant possibility of new channels for social engineering and malware attacks. We argue that the potential benefits will lead to pervasive deployment of attribute-based access control, and more generally attribute-based security. The cyber security research community has a responsibility to develop models, theories and systems which enable safe and chaos-free deployment of ABAC. This is a current grand challenge.

Biography

Ravi Sandhu is Executive Director of the Institute for Cyber Security at the University of Texas at San Antonio, where he holds the Lutcher Brown Endowed Chair in Cyber Security. Previously he served on the faculty at George Mason University (1989-2007) and Ohio State University (1982-1989). He holds BTech and MTech degrees from IIT Bombay and Delhi, and MS and PhD degrees from Rutgers University. He is a Fellow of IEEE, ACM and AAAS, and has received awards from IEEE, ACM, NSA and NIST. A prolific and highly cited author, his research has been funded by NSF, NSA, NIST, DARPA, AFOSR, ONR, AFRL and private industry. His seminal papers on role-based access control established it as the dominant form of access control in practical systems. His numerous other models and mechanisms have also had considerable real-world impact. He served as Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, and previously as founding Editor-in-Chief of ACM Transactions on Information and System Security. He was Chairman of ACM SIGSAC, and founded the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security, the ACM Symposium on Access Control Models and Technologies and the ACM Conference on Data and Application Security and Privacy. He has served as General Chair, Steering Committee Chair, Program Chair and Committee Member for numerous security conferences. He has consulted for leading industry and government organizations, and has lectured all over the world. He is an inventor on 30 security technology patents and has accumulated over 28,000 Google Scholar citations for his papers. At the Institute for Cyber Security his research projects include attribute-based access control, secure cloud computing, secure information sharing, social computing security, and secure data provenance.

Note

This talk is organized by the Automation Systems Group at the Institute of Computer-Aided Automation.

The Automation Systems Group and AIT Safety and Security Department are happy to present the “Cyber Security Lecture Series” organizing leading edge talks by international ICT security experts in Austria.

Speakers

• Prof. Ravi Sandhu, Executive Director of the Institute for Cyber Security at the University of Texas, San Antonio, USA

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