Analyzing workflows in business processes for obstructions due to authorization policies

Authors: Sandeep Lakkaraju, Sreekanth Malladi, Nick Spear

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Abstract: It is well-known that aligning security policies with business objectives is a difficult task. To address this, we present a new approach to analyze work-flow instances for obstructions due to static and dynamic authorization policies. We give a new algorithm that allows organizations to properly assign users to tasks without the policies causing obstructions (e.g. deadlocks). Our work is novel since we consider loops, conditions and parallelism in workflows, through a new concept called ``release" events. We illustrate our approach on some real-world workflows in healthcare and financial industries..
 

Acknowledgment: Work funded in part by the National Center for the Protection of Financial Infrastructure at Dakota State University.


Page last modified: August 22, 2011.