A Scalable Access Control Model for XML Databases
Naizhen Qi, Michiharu Kudo · 2006
XML databases involving sensitive information introduce a new challenge specific to scalable and efficient access control for data protection. However, related approaches have suffered from scalability problems because they tend to work on individual documents. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to XML access control through Java-based rule functions. A rule function is an executable code fragment that encapsulates the access control rules of a specific user or group, and is shared by all documents of the same document type. At runtime, the rule functions corresponding to the access request are loaded to the main memory and executed to determine the accessibility of document fragments. Moreover, this approach enables an efficient real-time update when the rules are updated. Using synthetic and real data, we show the scalability of the scheme by comparing the accessibility evaluation cost. Keyword XML, XML database, Access control, Security