Fine Granularity Access Rights for Information Flow Control in Object Oriented Systems

Abstract

One of the main features of information flow control is to ensure the enforcement of privacy and regulated accessibility. However, most information flow control models that have been proposed do not provide substantial assurance to enforce end-to-end confidentiality policies or they are too restrictive, overprotected, and inflexible. We present a model for discretionary access controls that is in harmony with the object oriented paradigm. The model uses access rights applied to object attributes and methods, thus allowing considerable flexibility without compromising system security by leaking sensitive information. Models based on message filtering intercept every message exchanged among objects to control the flow of information. We present an algorithm which enforces message filtering based on the defined access rights.