Naming and grouping privileges to simplify security management in large databases

An extension is described to ANSI SQI that simplifies security management by reducing the complexity of the access controls on database objects and by providing users with the flexibility to define administrative roles (like auditor or security administrator) that match their requirements for the separation of duties. The benefit of simplified security management is improved security. The main features of this extension have been implemented in the Oracle RDBMS and have been adopted for a future version of the ANSI SQL standard. This study focuses on major concepts and issues, not syntax and implementation. The key idea is to allow users to group and name privileges to form named protection domains (NPDs). The Clark-Wilson (1987) and Bell-LaPadula (1973) models are used to illustrate the benefits and limitations of NPDs. The main conclusion is that the naming and abstraction mechanism provided by NPDs can simplify security management in much the same way that procedures can simplify programming.<
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