On the Application of the Semantic Web Rule Language in the Definition of Policies for System Security Management

The adoption of a policy-based approach for the dynamic regulation of a system or service (e.g. security, QoS or mobility service) requires an appropriate policy representation and processing. In the context of the Semantic Web, the representation power of languages enriched with semantics (i.e. semantic languages), together with the availability of suitable interpreters, make such kind of languages well suited for policies representation. In this paper, we describe our proposal for the combination of the CIM-OWL ontology (i.e., the mapping of the DMTF Common Information Model into OWL) with the Semantic Web Rule Language as the basis for a semantically-rich security policy language that can be used to formally describe the desired security behaviour of a system or service. An example of security policy in this language and its reasonig are also presented.