1. Institute for Cyber Security An Attribute-Based Protection Model
for JSON Documents
Prosunjit Biswas, Ravi Sandhu and Ram Krishnan
Department of Computer Science
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
10th International Conference on Network and System Security
September 28th, 2016
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2. Labeling JSON elements Implementation Q/A
Outline
Summary
Motivation
Background
JSON protection model
Labeling JSON elements
Implementation
Q/A
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3. Summary
We have presented an attribute based protection model and labeling schemes for securing JSON documents.
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4. Motivation Why JSON documents?
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5. Motivation (continuing)
Why not reuse XML protection models?
Features of underlying data to be protected
Hierarchical relationship
(e.g. house-no, street, town)
Semantic association
(e.g. phone-no, , fax, mobile)
Scatteredness
(due to redundancy/duplicity)
- Considered in XML protection models
- Not considered
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6. Motivation (continuing)
Existing XML models vs proposed model
Labeling policies
Authorization
policies
Attribute values
Authorization
policies
Nodes
Nodes
Fig 1 (a): Existing XML protection models
Fig 1(b): Proposed JSON protection model
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7. Fig 2 (b): Corresponding JSON tree
Background - JSON
JSON data forms a rooted tree hierarchical structure (like XML) {
“emp-rec”:{
“name”: “...”,
“con-info”:{
“ ”: “...”,
“work-phone”: “...” },
“emp-info”:{
“mobile”: “...”,
“EID”: “...”,
“salary”: “...” }
“sen-info”: {
“SSN”: “...”,
emp-rec
con-info
emp-info
work-phone
mobile
sen-info
EID
Salary
SSN
salary
name
...
key nodes
Fig 2 (b): Corresponding JSON tree
Fig 2 (a): JSON data
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8. JSON protection model Fig 3: Scope of the JSON protection model
Specification of authorization policies
Specification of labeling policies
Content based labeling
Path based labeling
Fig 3: Scope of the JSON protection model
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9. JSON protection model (continuing)
ULH
SLH
JEH
uLabel
Micro-Policy
sLabel U
users UL SL
security-label
values JE
JSON
elements
Adapted from EAP-ABAC model [1]
Policy A
actions
Fig 4: The Attribute-based Operational Model (AtOM)
[1] Biswas, Prosunjit, Ravi Sandhu, and Ram Krishnan. "Label-Based Access Control: An ABAC Model with Enumerated Authorization Policy." Proceedings of the 2016 ACM International Workshop on Attribute Based Access Control. ACM, 2016.
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10. JSON protection model - examples
emp-rec
{enterprise}
manager HR
sensitive
con-info
{enterprise}
sen-info
{sensitive}
employee
employment
enterprise
work-phone
SSN
salary
guest
public
{enterprise}
{enterprise}
{sensitive}
{sensitive}
(a) (b) (c)
Fig 5: (a) User-label values, (b) security-label values and (c) annotated JSON tree
Example of a policy, Policyread =
{(manager, sensitive), (HR, employment), (employee, enterprise), (guest,public) }
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11. Labeling JSON documents
Specification of labeling policies
Content based labeling
Path based labeling
Fig 6 (a): Types of labeling policies
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12. Labeling JSON documents (continuing)
Purpose of labeling policies
Restrict arbitrary labeling
(Assignment control)
Propagation of labels (Propagation control)
Fig 6 (b): Purpose of labeling policies
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13. Labeling JSON documents – Assignment control
Assignment controls
No-restriction
Senior-up
Senior-down
Junior-up
Junior-down
Fig 7 (a): Different types of Assignment controls
Senior nodes
Fig 7 (b): Junior-up assignment control
Nodei
Valuei
Assignment
Senior nodes of Nodei must be assigned junior values of Valuei
Junior values 13 13
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14. Labeling JSON documents – Propagation control
Propagation controls
No-propagation
One-level up
One-level down
Cascading-up
Cascading-down
Fig 8: Different types of propagation controls
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15. Labeling JSON documents – Path-based labeling model
JPath
JSON path
LabelAssignments SL
security-label
values
constant set
finite set
SCOPE AC
assignment
control PC
propagation
Fig 9: Model for path-based labeling of JSON data
Table 1: Example of path-based labeling
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16. Prototype implementation
Keystone data
Roles as uLabel values
Policy table
JSON
document
sLabel values
Labeling policies
JSONAuth
plugin
1,2
3,6
4,5
1,2: User's request to keystone & responses with the credentials
3: User Request for JSON document
4,5: Request & response from object server for JSON document
6: User receive only authorized data from JSON document
OpenStack Keystone
OpenStack Swift
Required changes
Fig 10: Implementation in OpenStack Cloud
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17. Implementation - evaluation
Fig 11: Performance evaluation
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