Authentication, Authorization and Access Control

GOAL: Study of effective and efficient authentication, authorization and access control mechanisms.

Operating systems rely on authentication to verify that subjects (the users and programs) sharing the platform and OS resources are who they claim to be. Lack or weak authentication can result in untrusted parties having access to privileged operations. Authorization schemes determine the privileges a subject has on the system. To enforce the authorization constraints and to help manage the distribution, revocation and enforcement of privileges in a particular context or system, we design effective and efficient access control schemes. Modern operating systems employ a variety of such access control schemes, such as discretionary access control, mandatory access control and application permission models.