<abstract xml:lang="en" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Security policies have different components; firewall, active directory, and IDS are some examples of these components. Enforcement of network security policies to low level security mechanisms faces some essential difficulties. Consistency, verification, and maintenance are the major ones of these difficulties. One approach to overcome these difficulties is to automate the process of translation of high level security policy into low level security mechanisms. This paper introduces a framework of an automation process that translates a high level security policy into low level security mechanisms. The framework is described in terms of three phases; in the first phase all network assets are categorized according to their roles in the network security and relations between them are identified to constitute the network security model. This proposed model is based on organization based access control (OrBAC). However, the proposed model extend the OrBAC model to include not only access control policy but also some other administrative security policies like auditing policy. Besides, the proposed model enables matching of each rule of the high level security policy with the corresponding ones of the low level security policy. Through the second phase of the proposed framework, the high level security policy is mapped into the network security model. The second phase could be considered as a translation of the high level security policy into an intermediate model level. Finally, the intermediate model level is translated automatically into low level security mechanism. The paper illustrates the applicability of proposed approach through an application example.</p></abstract>

Security policies have different components; firewall, active directory, and IDS are some examples of these components. Enforcement of network security policies to low level security mechanisms faces some essential difficulties. Consistency, verification, and maintenance are the major ones of these difficulties. One approach to overcome these difficulties is to automate the process of translation of high level security policy into low level security mechanisms. This paper introduces a framework of an automation process that translates a high level security policy into low level security mechanisms. The framework is described in terms of three phases; in the first phase all network assets are categorized according to their roles in the network security and relations between them are identified to constitute the network security model. This proposed model is based on organization based access control (OrBAC). However, the proposed model extend the OrBAC model to include not only access control policy but also some other administrative security policies like auditing policy. Besides, the proposed model enables matching of each rule of the high level security policy with the corresponding ones of the low level security policy. Through the second phase of the proposed framework, the high level security policy is mapped into the network security model. The second phase could be considered as a translation of the high level security policy into an intermediate model level. Finally, the intermediate model level is translated automatically into low level security mechanism. The paper illustrates the applicability of proposed approach through an application example.

A Framework for Translating a High Level Security Policy into Low Level Security Mechanisms

Department of Computer Science and Informatics, Taibah University Al Medina Al Munawara, Saudi Arabia

Department of Communications, Misr Engineering and Technology Institute, Al Mansoura, Egypt

Journal of Electrical Engineering

Security policies have different components; firewall, active directory, and IDS are some examples of these components. Enforcement of network security...

A Framework for Translating a High Level Security Policy into Low Level Security Mechanisms

Published Online: Jun 07, 2011

Page range: 20 - 28

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/v10187-010-0003-x

Keywords
network security, security modeling, security policy, security mangement, OrBAC model

This content is open access.

A Framework for Translating a High Level Security Policy into Low Level Security Mechanisms

Published Online: Jun 07, 2011

Page range: 20 - 28

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/v10187-010-0003-x

Keywordsnetwork security, security modeling, security policy, security mangement, OrBAC model

This content is open access.

Keywords
network security, security modeling, security policy, security mangement, OrBAC model