Patent ID: 8474006
Filing Date: 2013-06-25
Classification: G06F,H04L

Abstract:
1. A method of determining how a policy change, from a first access policy to a second access policy, would have influenced past access requests, as a predictor of future problems with using the second access policy, the method comprising the steps of: using a computer hardware to implement an access control mechanism having a first access policy, the first access policy including a first access control list of users and identifying given actions that each of the users on the first access control list has access to; providing an audit log having entries of accesses made in the past to said given actions under the first access policy as provided to the access control mechanism and implemented by said computer hardware, each entry in the audit log identifying a person and an associated action; submitting a second access policy to said access control mechanism, the second access policy including a second access control list of users and identifying actions that each of the users on the second access control list has access to, and wherein some of the users, who made said accesses in the past to said given actions under said first access policy, are denied access to said given actions under the second access policy; informing an administrator of what happened in the past under the first access policy that could not happen in the future under the second access policy due to the policy change, by comparing a number of entries on the audit log to the second access control list of users to determine which of the persons, identified in said number of entries in the audit log, are not given access, according to the second access control list of users, to the actions associated with said persons in said number of entries in the audit log; and based on the results of the comparing, taking one of a predetermined number of actions; and wherein: the first access control list identifies a first group of users who have access to a specified database; the second access control list identifies a second group of users who have access to the specified database, and wherein the step of submitting the second access policy includes producing the second access control list by removing some of the users from the first access control list; the comparing step includes the step of comparing the second access control list to the first access control list to identify any user who is authorized to take a specified action under the first policy but not authorized to take said specified action under the second policy; and the taking step includes the step of modifying said second access policy to authorize said any user to take said specified action.