Hardware-Assisted Application-Level Access Control

Abstract. Applications typically rely on the operating system to enforce access control policies such as MAC, DAC, or other policies. However, in the face of a compromised operating system, such protection mechanisms may be ineffective. Since security-sensitive applications are most motivated to maintain access control to their secret or sensitive information, and have no control over the operating system, it is desirable to provide mechanisms to enable applications to protect information with application-specific policies, in spite of a compromised operating system. In this paper, we enable application-level access control and information sharing with direct hardware support and protection, bypassing the dependency on the operating system. We analyze an originator-controlled information sharing policy (ORCON), where the content creator specifies who has access to the file created and maintains this control after the file has been distributed. We show that this policy can be enfor...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: ISW
• Authors: Yu-Yuan Chen, Ruby B. Lee
• Keywords: Access Control, Access Control Policies, Information Management, ISW 2009, Operating System