Privacy-Preserving Access via Entitlement Segmentation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Cloud-delivered secure access solutions compromise enterprise privacy by exposing user identities, group memberships, and resource entitlements to cloud providers, contrary to traditional remote access models where this information remains private to the enterprise.
Innovation Solution
The use of entitlements instead of user identities to secure access to private resources, where entitlements are cryptographically bound to users without revealing their identities, and separate authentication and authorization mechanisms are employed to preserve privacy, with only the enterprise having knowledge of user identities and accessed resources for auditing purposes.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If cloud-delivered secure access solutions are used, then secure access to private resources is enabled, but enterprise privacy is compromised as user identities and entitlements are exposed to cloud providers
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the authentication and authorization processes into separate components: an identity provider service handles authentication while an access provider service handles authorization. This segmentation ensures that the cloud provider (access provider) never receives or processes user identity information, as authentication occurs separately through the identity provider. The entitlements are cryptographically bound to users without revealing identities to the access provider, thus maintaining enterprise privacy while enabling secure access.
Solution Approach 2:
The system introduces an intermediary mechanism in the form of cryptographic entitlements that mediate between user identity and resource access. These entitlements serve as a trusted intermediary that proves user authorization without exposing identity information. The entitlements are verified by the access provider service without requiring the provider to know or store any user identity data, thus acting as a privacy-preserving mediator in the authentication-authorization chain.
2Ease of operation
If user identity is used for authentication, then access control is enabled, but privacy is lost as cloud providers gain knowledge of user identities and group memberships
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts the identity information from the authentication-authorization flow. User identities are authenticated by the identity provider service and then completely removed from the subsequent authorization process. Only cryptographic entitlements (which contain no identity information) are passed to the access provider service for access control decisions. This extraction of identity data enables access control to function while preventing any cloud provider from gaining knowledge of user identities.
3Adaptability or versatility
If cloud providers store entitlements and user data, then access management is simplified, but enterprise control and privacy are reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary action by having the enterprise itself issue and manage cryptographic entitlements before they are used in the cloud access flow. The enterprise maintains complete control over entitlement creation, modification, and revocation through its identity provider service. This preliminary establishment of entitlements by the enterprise (rather than by the cloud provider) ensures that the enterprise retains full control and privacy while still benefiting from simplified cloud-based access management.
Data Source
AI summary
Techniques for preserving privacy while still allowing secure access to private resources. Among other things, the techniques may include receiving a request to provide a remote device with access to a private resource. In some instances, the request may be redirected to an identity provider service to authenticate the user of the remote device to maintain anonymity of an identity of the user. The techniques may also include receiving an indication of an entitlement-set provided by the identity provider service, the indication of the entitlement-set indicative of whether the user is entitled to access the resource without revealing the identity of the user. The techniques may also include at least one of authorizing the remote device to access the resource or refraining from authorizing the remote device to access the resource based at least in part on the indication of the entitlement-set.