Understanding the Fundamental Concepts of Security Models
Security models are designed to prioritize access to data based on confidentiality, availability, or integrity. In this section, we discuss popular security models and whether they focus on the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of data.
Bell-LaPadula
The Bell-LaPadula model prioritizes confidentiality over integrity and availability in systems such as mandatory access control (MAC). This is probably best explained by an example using Figure 7.3. The diagram shows three levels of clearance: top secret, secret, and confidential. If the user (data subject) has secret access, they can read secret and confidential documents (objects) but not top secret. This is called the Simple Security property, also known as read down, no read up.
The data subject can save objects at their clearance level or higher but cannot save documents at lower levels. This is called the Star Security property, also known as write up, no...