Semantics-based Access Control Approach for Web Service

Due to the open and distributed characteristics of web service, its access control becomes a challenging problem which has not been addressed properly. In this paper, we show how semantic web technologies can be used to build a flexible access control system for web service. We follow the Role-based Access Control model and extend it with credential attributes. The access control model is represented by a semantic ontology, and specific semantic rules are constructed to implement such as dynamic roles assignment, separation of duty constraints and roles hierarchy reasoning, etc. These semantic rules can be verified and executed automatically by the reasoning engine, which can simplify the definition and enhance the interoperability of the access control policies. The basic access control architecture based on the semantic proposal for web service is presented. Finally, a prototype of the system is implemented to validate the proposal.