A MODEL FOR EVALUATION AND ADMINISTRATION OF SECURITY IN OBJECT-ORIENTED DATABASES

The integration of object-oriented programming concepts with databases is one of the most significant advances in the evolution of database systems. Many aspects of such a combination have been studied, but there are few models to provide security for this richly structured information. We develop here an authorization model for object-oriented databases. This model consists of a set of policies, a structure for authorization rules, and algorithms to evaluate access requests against the authorization rules. User access policies are based on the concept of inherited authorization applied along the class structure hierarchy. We propose also a set of administrative policies that allow the control of user access and its decentralization. Finally, we study the effect of class structuring changes on authorization.