Security Policy Controller for Attribute-Based Data Access
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Solution Overview
Problem
Developing and maintaining application-specific security policies is inefficient, resource-intensive, and prone to errors, leading to security vulnerabilities as the number of software applications increases and policies change over time.
Innovation Solution
A security controller implements and manages multiple security policies across software applications, allowing each to adhere to different policies based on attribute values, and mediates data access according to predefined conditions, ensuring compliance without requiring application-specific implementations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If multiple application-specific security policy implementations are developed, then each application can have customized security policies, but the development and maintenance resource expenditure increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a universal security policy platform that serves multiple software applications through a common infrastructure. The security controller provides policy selection, assignment, and enforcement capabilities that can be reused across different applications, eliminating the need for each application to implement its own security policy engine. This multi-functional platform reduces overall system complexity while maintaining the ability to provide customized security policies for each application.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments the security policy functionality into distinct modular components: policy definition, policy selection, policy assignment, and policy enforcement. These segmented functions are implemented as separate software modules that can be independently managed and configured. The security controller acts as an intermediary that coordinates these segmented functions, allowing customized policies for each application without requiring full duplication of the security implementation across all applications.
2Adaptability or versatility
If application-specific security policy implementations are maintained separately, then each application can have its own security policy version, but the policies may become underdeveloped, erroneous, and outdated
Solution Approach 1:
The security controller serves as an intermediary between the centralized security policy platform and individual software applications. It receives policy requests from applications, retrieves the appropriate customized policies from the centralized repository, and enforces them. This intermediary architecture ensures that all applications access policies from a single source of truth, preventing policies from becoming outdated or erroneous while still allowing each application to have its own customized policy version stored centrally.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-defining and storing customized security policies for multiple applications in a centralized repository before they are needed. When an application requests security policy enforcement, the appropriate pre-prepared policy is already available in the repository, eliminating the need for each application to independently maintain and update its policies. This preliminary preparation ensures policies remain current and correct.
3Reliability
If security policies are updated over time to improve data protection, then data protection capabilities are enhanced, but application-specific implementations require changes and modifications
Solution Approach 1:
The universal security policy platform allows centralized updates to security policies without requiring changes to individual applications. The security controller is designed to retrieve and enforce updated policies from the centralized repository, automatically adapting to policy changes. This multi-functional architecture separates policy management from application logic, enabling improved data protection capabilities while maintaining application stability.
4Productivity
If a centralized security controller is implemented, then security policies can be reused across multiple applications, but the system architecture becomes more complex
Solution Approach 1:
The security controller is designed as a lightweight intermediary component that adds minimal architectural complexity. It implements a simple interface for receiving policy requests from applications and returning appropriate policies from the centralized repository. This intermediary approach enables policy reuse across multiple applications without requiring complex integration logic in each application, as the security controller handles all policy management complexity centrally.
Data Source
AI summary
A method includes obtaining a request for data, and obtaining a security policy indicator that indicates a security policy. The security policy may include access conditions that define data access according to one or more attribute values of an attribute. The method also includes determining an attribute value of the attribute based on the request, and identifying a subset of the data based on the attribute value. The subset of the data may satisfy the security policy. The method further includes providing the subset of the data to a software application.