Modular Synthesis of Enforcement Mechanisms for the Workflow Satisfiability Problem: Scalability and Reusability

Abstract

Modularity is an important concept in the design and enactment of workflows. However, supporting the specification and enforcement of authorization in this setting is not straightforward. In this paper, we introduce a notion of component and a combination mechanism for security-sensitive workflows. These are business processes in which execution constraints on the tasks are complemented with authorization constraints (e.g., Separation of Duty) and authorization policies (specifying which users can execute which tasks). We show how authorization constraints can also be imposed across components and demonstrate the usefulness of our notion of component by showing (i) the scalability of a technique for the synthesis of run-time monitors for security-sensitive workflows; and (ii) the design of a plug-in for the reuse of workflows and related run-time monitors inside an editor for security-sensitive workflows.