ESPOON$_{{ERBAC}}$: Enforcing Security Policies In Outsourced Environments

TL;DR

This paper introduces ESPOON_ERBAC, a system for enforcing role-based access control policies in outsourced data environments while maintaining data confidentiality and limiting information leakage.

Contribution

It proposes a novel encrypted RBAC enforcement mechanism suitable for untrusted outsourced environments, addressing privacy concerns and supporting complex user management.

Findings

Implemented ESPOON_ERBAC with limited performance overhead

Demonstrated feasibility of encrypted RBAC enforcement in practice

Ensured minimal information leakage to service providers

Abstract

Data outsourcing is a growing business model offering services to individuals and enterprises for processing and storing a huge amount of data. It is not only economical but also promises higher availability, scalability, and more effective quality of service than in-house solutions. Despite all its benefits, data outsourcing raises serious security concerns for preserving data confidentiality. There are solutions for preserving confidentiality of data while supporting search on the data stored in outsourced environments. However, such solutions do not support access policies to regulate access to a particular subset of the stored data. For complex user management, large enterprises employ Role-Based Access Controls (RBAC) models for making access decisions based on the role in which a user is active in. However, RBAC models cannot be deployed in outsourced environments as they rely on trusted infrastructure in order to regulate access to the data. The deployment of RBAC models may reveal private information about sensitive data they aim to protect. In this paper, we aim at filling this gap by proposing \textbf{$\mathit{ESPOON_{ERBAC}}$} for enforcing RBAC policies in outsourced environments. $\mathit{ESPOON_{ERBAC}}$ enforces RBAC policies in an encrypted manner where a curious service provider may learn a very limited information about RBAC policies. We have implemented $\mathit{ESPOON_{ERBAC}}$ and provided its performance evaluation showing a limited overhead, thus confirming viability of our approach.