Validating Access Control Policies for Virtual Organisations

Managing the evolution of a dynamic virtual organisation (VO) is a considerable challenge, particularly in ensuring that participating agents provide sufficient access to resources in order to achieve the overall goals without compromising their own information management principles. We propose a tool-supported approach, based on executable formal models, that supports rapid visualised feedback on design alternatives for access control policies that arise when a VO evolves. The approach has been prototyped using an established formal method and toolkit.