An ontology-based approach to context-aware access control for software services

Abstract

In modern communication environments, the ability to provide access control to services in a context-aware manner is crucial. By leveraging the dynamically changing context information, we can achieve context-specific control over access to services, better satisfying the security and privacy requirements of the stakeholders. In this paper, we introduce a new Context-Aware Access Control (CAAC) Framework that adopts an ontological approach in modelling dynamic context information and the corresponding CAAC policies. It includes a context model specific to access control, capturing the relevant low-level context information and inferring the high-level implicit context information. Using the context model, the policy model of the framework provides support for specifying and enforcing CAAC policies. We have developed a prototype and presented a healthcare case study to realise the framework. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.