A perspective on graphs and access control models

Abstract

There would seem to be a natural connection between graphs and information security. This is particularly so in the arena of access control and authorization. Research on applying graph theory to access control problems goes back almost three decades. Nevertheless it is yet to make its way into the mainstream of access control research and practice. Much of this prior research is based on first principles, although more recently there have been significant efforts to build upon existing graph theory results and approaches. This paper gives a perspective on some of the connections between graphs and their transformations and access control models, particularly with respect to the safety problem and dynamic role hierarchies. © Springer-Verlag 2004.