Role engineering using graph optimisation

Role engineering is one of the fundamental phases for migrating existing enterprises to Role Based Access Control. In organisations with a large number of users and permissions, this task can be time consuming and costly if a top down approach is used. Existing bottom up approaches are not sufficient in producing a comprehensive set of roles for hierarchical Role Based Access Control. In this research, we propose a predominately bottom up approach that uses Graph Optimisation to identify appropriate role hierarchies. Additional partial role specifications can be incorporated to produce a hybrid approach. Using rules that reduce administration requirements, roles and their hierarchies are automatically extracted from large numbers of permission assignments. The results of the Graph Optimisation approach are hierarchical Role Based Access Control infrastructures that offer improved access control administration for the system.