Access Granted – Carefully: Securing model information in collaborative modeling

Abstract

The collaborative nature of model-driven software engineering introduces significant challenges in safeguarding the confidentiality and integrity of the collaborative model. Existing access control mechanisms often rely on transient, virtual views lacking persistence and fine-grained permissions, making them unsuitable for scenarios requiring offline collaboration and leading to potential security breaches and user frustration. This work describes a dual-layered approach leveraging role-based access control policies to enhance security in collaborative modeling environments. The first layer utilizes multi-view modeling techniques to create materialized view models tailored to specific user roles, thereby restricting unnecessary access to the entire model. The second layer refines access at the individual element level within these view models, establishing fine-grained permissions enforced by model editors. This proactive enforcement prevents unauthorized actions before they occur, improving user experience and efficiency. The proposed approach, implemented as an Eclipse plugin and demonstrated through an illustrative example, ensures the confidentiality and integrity of shared model data by granting stakeholders access only to information relevant to their specific responsibilities and expertise. By filtering out irrelevant data, the approach also mitigates information overload, enabling stakeholders to concentrate on task-relevant aspects of the model, thereby potentially improving collaborative efficiency and effectiveness.