Semantic Time-Based Access Control: A Model for Patients’ Data Security in a Cloud Environment

Semantic technologies, which were first created for knowledge representation and reasoning on the web, are gaining traction in the business world as a viable solution to complicated information management problems. With the rapid growth of cloud computing, access control policies have emerged as a critical issue in cloud computing security. Since it involves the authorization of a user to access multiple cloud services, access control is critical in the cloud computing environment. Research has shown that several access models such as Discretionary Access Control (DAC), Obligatory Access Control (OAC), Mandatory Access Control (MAC)and Role Based Access Control (RBAC), have been adopted by most cloud systems depending on their demands but have yielded modest results in terms of how cloud resources may be used because, cloud computing is a specialized area. A Semantic Time-Based Access Control model (STBAC) is proposed as a solution to this problem, which addresses the unique security needs of the cloud environment in terms of access to cloud data resources and user access control by applying ontology to cloud resources and generating a time-sensitive key for access to such resources. In this work, a Semantic Time – Based Access Control Model was developed and applied to secure patients' medical records in a cloud environment.