Enabling Attribute-based Access Control in NoSQL Databases

Area of Science:

• Computer Science
• Database Systems
• Information Security

Background:

• NoSQL databases are crucial for managing large unstructured datasets but lack robust access control.
• Existing data protection measures in NoSQL are underdeveloped, posing security and privacy risks.
• Attribute-based Access Control (ABAC) offers a flexible solution for dynamic access management.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a novel methodology for implementing Attribute-based Access Control (ABAC) in NoSQL databases.
• To specifically address ABAC implementation challenges in MongoDB, a widely used NoSQL database.
• To enhance data protection and mitigate security vulnerabilities in NoSQL environments.

Main Methods:

• Developed a methodology for specifying and enforcing ABAC policies in MongoDB.
• Utilized the MongoDB Wire Protocol for request data extraction and processing.
• Incorporated dynamic access decisions using environmental attributes and digitally signed user attributes for ad-hoc requests.

Main Results:

• Demonstrated the scalability of the proposed ABAC approach through extensive experiments on real and synthetic datasets.
• Successfully implemented and tested the ABAC methodology within a MongoDB environment.
• Provided a publicly available GitHub repository for practical deployment.

Conclusions:

• The proposed ABAC methodology effectively enhances security and privacy for NoSQL databases, specifically MongoDB.
• The approach supports flexible policy specification, dynamic decision-making, and secure handling of ad-hoc requests.
• The implementation's scalability and public availability facilitate broader adoption of robust access control in NoSQL systems.