A Framework for the Validation of Access Control Systems

In modern pervasive applications, it is important to validate Access Control (AC) mechanisms that are usually defined by means of the XACML standard. Mutation analysis has been applied on Access Control Policies (ACPs) for measuring the adequacy of a test suite. This paper provides an automatic framework for realizing mutations of the code of the Policy Decision Point (PDP) that is a critical component in AC systems. The proposed framework allows the test strategies assessment and the analysis of test data by leveraging mutation-based approaches. We show how to instantiate the proposed framework and provide also some examples of its application.