CONTEXT-AWARE PERMISSION CONTROL OF HYBRID MOBILE APPLICATIONS

• US 20140331317A1
• Filed: 05/01/2013
• Published: 11/06/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 05/01/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: GlobalFoundries, Inc.
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Singh, Kapil K.
• Granted Patent: US 9,275,221 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 726/22
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 15/16 Combinations of two or more digital computers each having at least an arithmetic unit, a program unit and a register, e.g. for a simultaneous processing of several programs coordinating program control therefor G06F9/52; in regulating and control system G05B
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/00 Security arrangements for protecting computers, components thereof, programs or data against unauthorised activity
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/52 during program execution, e.g. stack integrity ; Preventing unwanted data erasure; Buffer overflow
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6218 to a system of files or objects, e.g. local or distributed file system or database
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/79 in semiconductor storage media, e.g. directly-addressable memories
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2105 Dual mode as a secondary aspect
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2147 Locking files
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/46 Multiprogramming arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/10 for controlling access to devices or network resources
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/107 wherein the security policies are location-dependent, e.g. entities privileges depend on current location or allowing specific operations only from locally connected terminals
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/1425 Traffic logging, e.g. anomaly detection
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/20 for managing network security; network security policies in general filtering policies H04L63/0227
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72403 with means for local support of applications that increase the functionality
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/021 Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences

Abstract

Controlling access to secure resources of a data processing system is provided. An input-to-output mapping of an application installed on the data processing system is generated that determines whether a secure resource in the data processing system is shared with an external entity associated with the application and under what specified conditions. It is determined whether the specified conditions exist during runtime of the application. In response to determining that the specified conditions do not exist during runtime of the application, sharing of the secure resource of the data processing system with the external entity associated with the application is prevented. In response to determining that the specified conditions do exist during runtime of the application, sharing of the secure resource of the data processing system with the external entity associated with the application is allowed.

Claims

1. A method for controlling access to secure resources of a data processing system, the method comprising:

generating, by the data processing system, an input-to-output mapping of an application installed on the data processing system that determines whether a secure resource in the data processing system is shared with an external entity associated with the application and under what specified conditions;

determining, by the data processing system, whether the specified conditions exist during runtime of the application;

responsive to the data processing system determining that the specified conditions do not exist during runtime of the application, preventing, by the data processing system, sharing of the secure resource of the data processing system with the external entity associated with the application; and

responsive to the data processing system determining that the specified conditions do exist during runtime of the application, allowing, by the data processing system, sharing of the secure resource of the data processing system with the external entity associated with the application.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

monitoring, by the data processing system, a number of accesses sharing the secure resource of the data processing system with the external entity associated with the application;

determining, by the data processing system, whether the number of accesses sharing the secure resource of the data processing system exceeded an access control threshold value corresponding to the secure resource;

responsive to the data processing system determining that the number of accesses sharing the secure resource of the data processing system does not exceed the access control threshold value corresponding to the secure resource, detecting, by the data processing system, whether the specified conditions exist during runtime of the application; and

responsive to the data processing system determining that the number of accesses sharing the secure resource of the data processing system does exceed the access control threshold value corresponding to the secure resource, terminating, by the data processing system, the sharing of the secure resource of the data processing system with the external entity associated with the application.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, by the data processing system, a chunk specification that specifies a set of code chunks within the application, each particular code chunk in the set of code chunks is associated with a particular set of one or more secure resources of the data processing system that the particular code chunk has access to and a particular external entity that the particular code chunk has been granted permission to communicate with;

receiving, by the data processing system, a set of context-aware security policies that is associated with the application and defines particular conditions under which permission to access secure resources of the data processing system are granted; and

splitting, by the data processing system, the application into the set of code chunks based on at least one of the chunk specification and the set of context-aware security policies.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

removing, by the data processing system, direct application programming interface calls by the application to the secure resources of the data processing system; and

requiring, by the data processing system, the set of code chunks within the application accessing the secure resources of the data processing system to utilize a set of custom information flow control application programming interfaces located in an information flow control module of the data processing system to enforce the set of context-aware security policies.

5. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

generating, by the data processing system, a manifest file associated with the application that specifies each requested communication between each code chunk in the set of code chunks within the application and a respective external entity that a particular code chunk communicates with and also specifies a particular secure resource that is shared with the respective external entity based on the chunk specification.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

verifying, by the data processing system, that selections in the manifest file granting permission to a set of requested external entity communications complies with the set of context-aware security policies; and

displaying, by the data processing system, a notification of non-compliant selections in the manifest file granting permission to the set of requested external entity communications.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating, by the data processing system, a mapping between a set of context-aware security policies that grant permission to access secure resources of the data processing system and a set of custom information flow control application programming interfaces required to call the secure resources.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the specified conditions include at least one of a current geographic location of the data processing system, an identity of the external entity associated with the application, and an access control threshold value associated with the secure resource.

9-20. -20. (canceled)