Collaborative Portal Security
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Prof. Steven A. Demurjian, Sr.
Computer Science & Engineering Department
The University of Connecticut
371 Fairfield Road, Box U-1155
Storrs, CT 06269-1155
steve@engr.uconn.edu
http://www.engr.uconn.edu/~steve
(860) 486 - 4818
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Security for Collaborative Web Portals
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Collaborative Portals Rapidly Emerging as Means for
Communication, Interaction, and Problem Solving
over Distances
 SourceForge MediaWiki
 Microsoft Sharepoint
 phpBB
Security Model and Enforcement Often Lacking
 Consider WIKIs
 Anonymous Users (Read Only)
 Registered Users (Full Write Access)
 Result: No Guarantee of Data Correctness
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Need to Transcend Simplistic Approach for
Application Level, Document Level (Author/View),
and Look-and-Feel of Portal Itself
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What is a WIKI?
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Repository for Information that Accessible to All
Collaborative Platform
Content Contribution/Creation/Modification
Document Authoring
Historical Tracking of Actions
Shared Platform to Facilitate Information Exchange, Joint
Efforts, etc.
Runs in Web Environment (Browser) – No Software to
Install
Limited Security: User Accounts/Passwords
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MediaWiki underlies WikiPedia
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http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki
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MediaWiki from SourceForge
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A Wiki for Accreditation
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Creating an Account
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Viewing the Main Page
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Uploading Documents
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Creating and Modifying Content
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Viewing the Historical Record
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Customized Searching
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Uploading Images
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Problems with MediaWiki and Others
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Not Very User Friendly, Particularly for NonComputer Savvy Population
Difficult to Customize with Specialized Features and
Capabilities beyond Basic Look and Feel Changes
Security Limited to User/Password Combinations
 Everyone can do Anything
 Set up as Shared and Collaborative for All
 No Control on Incorrect Content Being Uploaded
Addition of Security Violates General WIKI Concept
of Open and Available to All
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Current R&D on WIKIs
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Led by Serebrum (www.serebrum.com)
Developing AXON WIKI with Capabilities that
include:
 Content Creating Editing (WYSISYG)
 Document Publishing (Web, PDF, RTF)
 Document Distribution (Email, Print, Fax)
 Mobile Access (Limited with BlackBerry)
 Security
 Role-Based Access Control to Define Privileges
 For Example, Physician, Provider, Patient, Clinical
Researcher, etc.
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Full Collaborative Environment
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Usage of Axon in Safety.Net
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Used by Project Team (PIs, Co-PIs, Providers, etc.)
Repository for Planning Effort
Upload, Create, Review, Modify Documents
Allows Safety.Net Team to Familiarize Themselves
with WIKI Technology/Web Portals
No Software to Install
Problems with Off-the-Shelf Product (MediaWiki)
 Customization Time Consuming (and Limited)
 Security Minimal – but Acceptable for this Use
(Can’t store any Patient Related Information)
 Limited User Friendliness May Result in Poor
Opinion of Web Technology
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Usage of WIKIs in Safety.Net
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Another Alternative – Use AXON Product
 Still Web Solution (No Software to Download)
 Professional Developers
 Customize AXON for Use on Project
Multi-Pronged Approach
 Start with AXON for PIs, Co-PIs, Providers as
Means to Support the Grant
 Explore the Potential Usage/Extensions of AXON
to Support Patient Access to Health Care Data
 Synergistic Teams (Serebrum, UCHC, UConn
CSE) Submit Phase I Grants for Funding
In-Kind Software Contribution/Pay for Customization
Work Currently Funded
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Potential Usage of WIKIs in CTSA
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Use of AXON as Enabling Technology for the Grant
 Web-Based and Hand-Held Interfaces
 Customization for Biomedical Informatics
 Platform for
 Clinical Research (Recruit Patients, Providers, etc.)
 Information Dissemination (Newsletters, etc.)
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Architectures and Solutions for
 Integration with Healthcare Systems (EMR, EHR)
 Security and HIPPA Compliance
 XML Standards for Health Data
Document Extensions (Medical Images)
 Visualization Extensions (Data Mining)
Going Independent Route for Team Project
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A First Snapshot of AXON
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A First Snapshot of AXON
Infolet – Piece of Information that can
Easily Created, Edited, Classified, etc.
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Infolets organized into Accordions (US Travel,
Project Brainstorm, etc.)
For Our Purposes – HIT Related Topics
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A First Snapshot of AXON
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Docs can be Images, Word, PDF,
anything…
This is an editable document associated
with the Selected Topic
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Accordions Contain a Topic Topics
 Parent Topics, Child Topics, GrandChild Topics
 Customizable Based on Domain
 PHR: Parent Topics of: History, Meds, Visits, etc.
 Each Topic has Document (Editable) and Attached
Documents
The Topic Tree is Customizable by User/Role so that
Different Information visible to Different Users
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Other AXON Features
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Intended to be Fully Fledged Collaborative Tool
Work Over Distance
History +
Audit Trail
Full-text
search
Integrated
CMS + DMS
Hierarchical topic
tree
Easy Content
Creation
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Editing Topic Documents
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For Each Topic,Associated Document can be
Created/Edited with Full WYSISYG editor
 Other WIKIs Don’t have this Capability
 Extending this to Spreadsheet Creation
Word-like Interface for Document Creation and
Modification
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Other AXON Features
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This allows Documents to
be Assembled
 From Topic Down
 Combines Docs
 Creates New Doc
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This is the WIKIBerry
Interface
 Limited Access
 View and Edit Content
 Synchs with Server
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Architecture Promotes Customizability
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Presentation Layer
BrainStorm
Struts
(JSP / Servlets)
DITA
Publishing
Channels
Elicitation
Toolkit
Ajax
Requirements
Ontology
Web
Workstation
VPN
F
I
R
E
W
A
L
L
Application Layer
RBAC
Axon
(Wiki + CMS
+ DMS +
Search)
Data Layer
LDAP
Laptop
Any DB
Hibernate
Ajax Engine
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WebSphere
Grayed Boxes (Elicitation Toolkit and Ontology) are
Application Dependent/Customizable
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Security Concepts and Permissions in Axon
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A user is identified by:
 Username (unique), userid (unique),
 User duration (userstarttime and userendtime that
the user is active).
A role can be defined for any capability
 Standard roles: guest, author, manager, admin
 For each role, there is a list of allowable topics
A user associated with one or more roles in axon
 User authenticated (user name, password)
 User selects from list of authorized roles a set of
 Axon customizes itself based on the chosen role
using the permissions stored in the database
 Able to change roles during a session.
 Multiple separate sessions each with its own role.
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Security Concepts and Permissions in Axon
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To isolate user from role: group abstraction
 Each User is the member of one or more Groups
 Group is identified by: GroupName (unique),
GroupID (unique), and Group duration
(GroupStartTime and GroupEndTime
 Users in multiple groups and have multiple roles
 Each group can have zero or more users
Active Session for a User limits the User to a
particular Group <UserID, GroupID>
From a security perspective (see next slide):
 Permissions will be assigned to Roles
 Roles will be assigned to Users/Groups
 Users/Groups will be assigned to Accordions.
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Current AXON Main Scren
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Other Important Concepts
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A Project contains multiple Accordions
 E.g. US Travel, Brainstorm, EGuru, and Report
 For Each Accordions, a Topic Tree, a Document
List, and an Index is maintained
 Each Accordion can have one or more Users,
 Each Accordion can have zero or more Groups
University Accordions: Just like Peoplesoft
 Faculty, Student, Grad Program Director
 Faculty Accordion (corresponding to the Faculty
Role) would have Record Grade, Permission
Numbers, Advisee List, and other Child Topics
PHR Accordions:
 Patient History, Education Materials,
Appointments, etc.
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Other Important Concepts
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The Topic Tree contains three levels of parent, child,
and grandchild topics:
 Each topic in this tree is associated with exactly
one xhtml page.
 Each topic in this tree is associated with zero or
more documents of all types (Word, PPT, PDF,
GIF, etc.).
 The DOCS tab contains a list of documents.
specifically, for the selected topic - all documents
for the topic and its descendants are shown.
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Axon Permissions
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Basic Topic Tree Permissions
 Each Role can have one or more topics
 Each Group can have zero or more topics
 Each Accordion can have zero or more topics
Upon Successful Login, the Accordions for a User in a
Group with a Role are Displayed
Advanced Topic Tree Permissions:
 View Means that the User has permission to View
the xhtml page associated with that topic
 Edit Means that the User has permission to modify,
delete, update, etc., the xhtml page associated with
that topic
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Axon Permissions
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Edit/History Permissions
 Edit having a value of Yes means the Edit button is
enabled
 If the Topic Tree has a Permission of Edit for a Topic,
then the permission for the Topic Button Edit should be
set to Yes.
History View and History Rollback are assigned
on a Yes/No basis to each Role.
Button Permissions:
 Buttons: Global Menu for Hide, History, Import,
Export, Email, Fax, and Print.
 Permissions are Yes/No on a role-by-role basis.
No means that the associated ICON doesn’t appear
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Axon Permissions
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Topic Icon Permissions: Five Icons are:
 New Topic to Create a new Topic
 Copy to Make a Copy of an Existing Topic
 Paste to Paste a Copy of an Existing Topic
 Rename to Change the Name of a Topic
 Archive to Store a new Version of the xhtml page
associated with the topic
 Permissions are Yes/No on a role-by-role basis.
No means that the associated ICON doesn’t appear
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Axon Permissions
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Document Permissions
 View: Open Document (word, PPT, etc.) with
associated desktop viewer but do not save changes.
 Add: Be able to Import a Document
 Replace: Be able to Substitute a new Document for
an Existing Document
 Replace is really "Substitute this new document while
saving all versions of the old one."
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Archive: Transition a document to being "logically
offline" as it exists at that point in time and remove
it from the list of active documents
 Users will not be able to view the archived documents.
 An Administrator has the authority to restore archived
documents if required
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Realizing RBAC in Axon
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Combination of LDAP and Custom RBAC
 Lightweight Directory Access Protocol Tracks
Directory Info on Users/Sessions
 Customize via RBAC Look and Feel (prior slides)
Other Technologies Possible
 XACML – Web Services Policy Constraint Lang.
 Different Implementations Available
 Not Mature as yet
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Bandit Role Engine
 RBAC based on NIST and Sun’s XACML
 Limited Functionality
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Our Approach – Custom, Relational DB Solution with
Enforcement Built into Axon
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UML ER Diagram
Group_Role_Authorization
User_Group_Authorization
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-GroupRoleStartTime
-GroupRoleEndTime
-UserGroupStartTime
-UserGroupEndTime
Users
Groups
-UserID
-UserName
Roles
-GroupID
-GroupName
*
Widgets
*
*
-RoleID
-RoleName
*
*
*
-WidgetID
-WidgetName
-WidgetType
Permissions
Topic_Role_Auth
-PermissionID
-PermissionName
-PermissionType
*
*
*
*
*
*
WIKI_LookAndFeel_Auth
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*
Topic_Group_Auth
Document_Auth
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*
*
*
*
*
Projects
-ProjectID
-ProjectName
-ProjectStatus
Documents
* 1
Spaces
-SpaceID
-SpaceName
Project_Spaces
Topics
1 *
*
0..*
-TopicID
-TopicName
Space_Topics
-DocumentID
-DocumentName
-DocumentType
-DocumentStatus
Widget_Privilege_Types
Topic_Attachments
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Relational Database Tables for RBAC
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Top Level Tables:
ProjectInfo <ProjectID, ProjectName>
AccordionInfo <AccordionID, AccordionName>
ProjectAccordions <ProjectID, AccordionID,
AccStartTime, AccEndTime>
 Master Tables: All Projects, Accordions, and P-A
Topic/Subtopic Tables:
Topic <TopicID, TopicName, ProjectID,
AccordionID>
SubTopic1 <SubtopicID1, SubTopic1Name,
TopicID>
SubTopic2 <SubTopicID2, SubTopicID1, TopicID,
SubTopic2Name>
 Master Tables for All Parent, Child, and
Grandchild Topics
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Relational Database Tables for RBAC
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Versions:
TopicVersion <VersionPK, VersionID, TopicID,
SubTopicID1, SubTopicID2, Author,
Description, VersionDate, Attachment>
 Different Versions of xhtml Page for Each Tree
Entry
Attachments:
Attachment <AttachmentPK, TopicID, LevelID>
AttachmentVersion <VersionPK, VersionID,
AttachID, FileName, DocType, Author, Size,
AttachmentDate, Comments, RandomName>
 Various Attachments (Documents –Word, PPT,
etc.) Associate with Each Topic + Versions
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Relational Database Tables for RBAC
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Permissions:
UserInfo <UserID, LastName, FirstName,
UserStartTime, UserEndTime>
PermissionInfo <PermissionID, PermissionName>
GroupInfo <GroupID, GroupName, GroupStartTime,
GroupEndTime>
RoleInfo <RoleID, RoleName, RoleStartTime,
RoleEndTime>
UserGroupAuthorization <UserID, GroupID,
UGStartTime, UGEndTime>
UserRoleAuthorization <UserID, RoleID,
URStartTime, UREndTime>
 The User, Roles, Groups, and their Permissions
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Relational Database Tables for RBAC
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Authorizing Topics to Users, Groups, and Roles
Authorization – Option A:
TopicUserAuth <UserID, PermissionID,
ProjectID, AccordionID,
TopicID, SubTopicID1, SubTopicID2>
TopicGroupAuth <GroupID, PermissionID,
ProjectID, AccordionID,
TopicID, SubTopicID1, SubTopicID2>
TopicRoleAuth <RoleID, PermissionID,
ProjectID, AccordionID,
TopicID, SubTopicID1, SubTopicID2>
Authorization – Option B:
TopicAuth <ProjectID, AccordionID, GroupID,
UserID, RoleID, PermissionID,
TopicID, SubTopicID1, SubTopicID2>
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Relational Database Tables for RBAC
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Wiki Look and Feel Authorization:
WikiLookandFeelAuthorization <RoleID, widgetID,
widgetprivilegeID>
Widget <widgetID, widgettype, widgetcategory,
widgetname>
WidgetPrivilegeType <widgetprivilegeID,
widgetprivilegename>
 Tracking the Different Widgets and their
Availability based on Role
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Sample Table Entries
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Concluding Remarks: Portal Security
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Expand WIKI Security Beyond Coarse Grained
Transition and Generalize to Web Portals
Security for:
 Application Level
 Document Level
 Portal Look-and-Feel
Truly Collaborative and Secure
Other Work
 Extending Axon with MAC (Navy SBIR)
 Dealing with Delegation, Separation of Duty, etc.
Leveraging the Concepts for Team Project
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