A Comparison of Attribute Based Access Control (ABAC) Standards for Data Service Applications: Extensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) and Next Generation Access Control (NGAC)

Ferraiolo, David; Chandramouli, Ramaswamy; Hu, Vincent; Kuhn, Richard

doi:https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.800-178

SP 800-178

A Comparison of Attribute Based Access Control (ABAC) Standards for Data Service Applications: Extensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) and Next Generation Access Control (NGAC)

Documentation Topics

Date Published: October 2016

Author(s)

David Ferraiolo (NIST), Ramaswamy Chandramouli (NIST), Vincent Hu (NIST), Richard Kuhn (NIST)

Abstract

Extensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) and Next Generation Access Control (NGAC) are very different attribute based access control (ABAC) standards with similar goals and objectives. An objective of both is to provide a standardized way for expressing and enforcing vastly diverse access control policies on various types of data services. However, the two standards differ with respect to the manner in which access control policies are specified and implemented. This document describes XACML and NGAC, and then compares them with respect to five criteria. The goal of this publication is to help ABAC users and vendors make informed decisions when addressing future data service policy enforcement requirements.

Keywords

access control mechanism; access control model; access control policy; attribute based access control (ABAC); authorization; Extensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML); Next Generation Access Control (NGAC); access control; privilege

Control Families

Access Control

Documentation

Publication:
SP 800-178 (DOI)
Local Download

Supplemental Material:
None available

Related NIST Publications:
Book
SP 800-162
NISTIR 7987 Rev. 1
NISTIR 7316

Document History:
12/02/15: SP 800-178 (Draft)
10/03/16: SP 800-178 (Final)

Topics

Security and Privacy
access authorization; access control