Content-based information protection and release in NATO operations

Abstract

The successful operation of NATO missions requires effective and secure sharing of information among coalition partners and external organizations, while avoiding the disclosure of sensitive information to untrusted users. To resolve the conflict between confidentiality and availability, NATO is developing a new information sharing infrastructure, called Content-based Protection and Release. We describe the architecture of access control in NATO operations, which is designed to be easily built on top of available (service-oriented) infrastructures for identity and access control management. We then present a use case scenario drawn from the NATO Passive Missile Defence system for simulating the consequences of intercepting missile attacks. In the system demonstration, we show how maps annotated with the findings of the system are filtered by the access control module to produce appropriate views for users with different clearances and terminals under given release and protection policies.