CAMAC: a context-aware mandatory access control model

Abstract

Mandatory access control models have traditionally been employed as a robust security mechanism in multilevel security environments such as military domains. In traditional mandatory models, the security classes associated with entities are context-insensitive. However, context-sensitivity of security classes and flexibility of access control mechanisms may be required especially in pervasive computing environments. To this aim, we propose a context-aware mandatory access control model (CAMAC) capable of dynamic adaptation of access control policies to context, and of handling context-sensitive class association, in addition to preservation of confidentiality and integrity as specified in traditional mandatory access control models. In order to prevent any ambiguity, a formal specification of the model and its elements such as context predicates, context types, level update rules, and operations is required. High expressiveness of the model allows specification of the traditional mandatory access control models such as BLP, Biba, Dion, and Chinese Wall. The model can also be considered as an information flow control model with context-sensitive association of security classes.