mandatory access control in information security

Two labels are said to be equal if they have the same classification and the same set of compartments. The classification component of the first entity's label is equal to or outranks the object's classification.Īll compartments in the second entity's labels are included in the first entity's label. An entity's label is said to dominate another's if the following two conditions are met: It compares the subject's label with the object's label and permits or disallows the transaction depending on which label is dominant (as described below). The Trusted Solaris environment mediates all attempted security-related transactions. In some cases, a process may be an object, such as when you use kill on a process. Such as a data file, directory, printer, or other device. An object is a passive entity that contains or receives data, A subject is an active entity, usually a process (running program), that causes information to flow among objects or changes the system state. Figure 1-3 Typical Environment with Labels DisplayedĪll subjects and objects in a system have labels. Figure 1-3 shows aĬonfiguration configured to display labels the labels and trusted stripe are indicated. Labels may be displayed inside square brackets ( ) in window title bars, in the trusted stripe (a special area at the bottom of the screen), or not at all, depending on how your system is configured. Labels are also referred to as sensitivity labels The label determines which information you can access. The Trusted Solaris environment uses a string called a label, which contains a classification and compartments in similar fashion to clearances. Some typical clearances are shown in the following figure. Access to compartments is granted on a need-to-know basis. Is not as standardized a hypothetical classification hierarchy might be PUBLIC, INTERNAL, NEED TO KNOW, and REGISTERED.Ĭompartment - Represents a grouping, such as a work group, department, project, or topic.

In government, classifications are: TOP SECRET, SECRET, CONFIDENTIAL, and UNCLASSIFIED. Applied to people, the classification represents a measure of trust applied to data, it is the degree of protection required. It has two components:Ĭlassification - Indicates a (hierarchical) level of security. The user clearance represents the degree of security with which a user is entrusted. ClearancesĪs part of your site's security policy, your security administrator assigns a user clearance to everyone at your site. MAC is enforced according to your site's security policy and cannot be overridden without special authorization or privileges. MAC also prevents users from writing to files at lower levels. It permitsĪccess to information, programs, and devices at the same or lower level only. Roughly speaking, MAC associates the programs a user runs with the security level (clearance or label) at which the user chooses to work in the session. Mandatory access control (MAC) is a system-enforced access control mechanism that uses clearances and labels to enforce security policy.

Mandatory access control in information security