Consistency policies for dynamic information systems with declassification flows

Abstract

Many research work focused on modeling relational database management systems (DBMS) that support multilevel security (MLS) policies. One issue in this context is the inference problem which occurs when it is possible to derive higher classified data from lower classified ones. This corresponds to situations where data is inconsistently classified. Research work that address the inconsistent classification problem generally assume that classification assigned to data is statically defined and does not change over time (the tranquility principle). However, in more recent studies, advanced properties such as secure data declassification were also considered. The main issues addressed in these work are how to extend existing information flow control models, like non interference, to control information flows created by data declassification. But, these work do not consider that dependencies between data may create inconsistent classification problems when data is declassified. In this paper, we present an approach to consider consistency issues in dynamic information systems with declassifications. Our approach relies on the modeling of explanation graphs associated to both the information system and the declassification flows. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.