Real life challenges in access-control management

  • Authors:
  • Lujo Bauer;Lorrie Faith Cranor;Robert W. Reeder;Michael K. Reiter;Kami Vaniea

  • Affiliations:
  • Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA;Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA;Microsoft, Redmond, WA, USA;University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA;Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
  • Year:
  • 2009

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Abstract

In this work we ask the question: what are the challenges of managing a physical or file system access-control policy for a large organization? To answer the question, we conducted a series of interviews with thirteen administrators who manage access-control policy for either a file system or a physical space. Based on these interviews we identified three sets of real-world requirements that are either ignored or inadequately addressed by technology: 1) policies are made/implemented by multiple people; 2) policy makers are distinct from policy implementers; and 3) access-control systems don't always have the capability to implement the desired policy. We present our interview results and propose several possible solutions to address the observed issues.