Managing policy updates in security-typed languages
| Title | Managing policy updates in security-typed languages |
| Publication Type | Conference Papers |
| Year of Publication | 2006 |
| Authors | Swamy N, Hicks MW, Tse S, Zdancewic S |
| Conference Name | 19th IEEE Computer Security Foundations Workshop, 2006 |
| Date Published | 2006/// |
| Publisher | IEEE |
| ISBN Number | 0-7695-2615-2 |
| Keywords | Access control, Computer languages, Data security, Database systems, dynamic queries, dynamic semantics, Educational institutions, high level languages, Information security, information-flow policy management, Lattices, Network servers, Operating systems, policy update management, Robustness, role-based security policies, RT role-based trust-management framework, Rx security-typed programming language, security of data, statically verified transactions, transitive flows |
| Abstract | This paper presents Rx, a new security-typed programming language with features intended to make the management of information-flow policies more practical. Security labels in Rx, in contrast to prior approaches, are defined in terms of owned roles, as found in the RT role-based trust-management framework. Role-based security policies allow flexible delegation, and our language Rx provides constructs through which programs can robustly update policies and react to policy updates dynamically. Our dynamic semantics use statically verified transactions to eliminate illegal information flows across updates, which we call transitive flows. Because policy updates can be observed through dynamic queries, policy updates can potentially reveal sensitive information. As such, Rx considers policy statements themselves to be potentially confidential information and subject to information-flow metapolicies |
| DOI | 10.1109/CSFW.2006.17 |