Role Reachability Analysis for Access Control Policy Verification
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Solution Overview
Problem
In distributed systems, managing access control policies becomes complex due to transitive tag behavior, leading to potential unexpected privilege escalation, as users or roles can inadvertently gain access to sensitive resources through subtle role assumption steps.
Innovation Solution
An automated access control analyzer performs symbolic reasoning analysis using a role reachability graph to determine if a user or role can assume another role based on transitive tags, identifying potential privilege escalation configurations and notifying relevant users or administrators.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If access control policies are made more flexible to support transitive tags and role assumption, then adaptability and versatility improve, but security reliability deteriorates due to unexpected privilege escalation
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary analysis of role reachability and privilege escalation paths before actual access requests are processed. By pre-computing the role reachability graph and identifying potential escalation configurations, the system can detect security issues before they are exploited, allowing flexible access control to be maintained while preventing security breaches.
Solution Approach 2:
The system continuously monitors and analyzes access control policies, role assumptions, and tag assignments to detect unexpected privilege escalation. By implementing feedback mechanisms that track role reachability and notify administrators of potential security issues, the system maintains both flexibility and security through continuous validation and adjustment of access control configurations.
2Difficulty of detecting and measuring
If automated analysis of role reachability is implemented, then security detection capability improves, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system introduces an intermediary access control analyzer that acts as a mediator between the complex access control policies and the security monitoring functions. This analyzer constructs and analyzes a role reachability graph, serving as an intermediate representation that simplifies the detection of privilege escalation paths while maintaining comprehensive security analysis capabilities.
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates a simplified copy or model of the access control structure in the form of a role reachability graph. This graphical model replicates the essential relationships between roles, principals, and tags without containing all the complexity of the actual access control policies, making analysis more manageable while preserving security detection accuracy.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods, systems, and computer-readable media for analysis of role reachability using policy complements are disclosed. An access control analyzer determines two nodes in a graph that potentially have a common edge. The nodes correspond to roles in a provider network, and the roles are associated with first and second access control policies that grant or deny access to resources. The access control analyzer performs a role reachability analysis that determines whether the first role can assume the second role for a particular state of one or more key-value tags. The role reachability analysis determines a third access control policy authorizing a negation of a role assumption request for the second role. The role reachability analysis performs analysis of the third access control policy with respect to a role assumption policy for the second role for the particular state of the one or more key-value tags.