An Information Visualization Software System to Manage Resource Access Control Policies

Reference#: P02276

Information security must be assured as sharing information becomes more prevalent and more flexible in multi-national and multi-organizational environments. Complex digital Access Control policies/ rules can be difficult to author, analyze, update, approve, and reverse-engineer. Management of the policies, rules, and their interactions can become intractable and overwhelming to human administrators, therefore there is a need to improve comprehension of access control policies and conflict resolution.

JHU/APL has developed a prototype application to visualize resource access requests based on a rule-based access control model. Our information visualization software system is: • Useful anywhere control access required – Networks, virtual networks – Web sites, portals, web services, messaging – Databases, directories, other repositories • Useful to different stakeholders – Network, repository, mission owners – System support personnel – System Certifiers – System and Network Accreditors Our technology is relevant to many industries where information security is required and there exist different access control policies, such as: government / military, medical, financial, legal, entertainment.