Discretionary Access Control in Object-oriented Databases: Issues and Research Directions

In recent years we have witnessed considerable e orts in the research and development of object-oriented database management systems. As object-oriented database technology matures, the availability of adequate access control mechanisms will be crucial to its commercial acceptance. In this paper we discuss discretionary access control issues in object-oriented databases. Our objective is two-fold. One objective is to survey the state of the art in access control concepts and mechanisms as reported in the relevant literature. To do this, we develop a framework to categorize access control issues. The categories include subject to object, inter-object, and intra-object access control. We cover structural and behavioral approaches to access control. Another objective is to identify several research directions and access control issues that are beyond the scope of existing mechanisms. These include authorizations based on separation of duties and multiple approvals, the incorporation of temporal semantics, and transaction based authorization.