Abstract: Policies defining the entitlements to be assigned to a new identity joining a role are automatically generated. An automatic policy assigns a new identity the entitlements commonly owned by a predetermined number of identities in the role, which may be all of the role identities. A conditional policy recommends that a new identity be assigned the non-commonly-owned entitlements associated with the role identity whose non-entitlement attributes most closely match the non-entitlement attributes of the new identity. This may be automatically determined by iterating through a vector that maps the non-commonly-owned entitlements with the non-entitlement attributes of each role identity, comparing the non-entitlement attributes of the new identity to find the closest match. The non-commonly-owned entitlements of that identity are then recommended to be assigned to the new identity, upon approval.

Abstract: An automated, bottom-up role discovery method for a role based control system includes automatically extracting identities and attributes from data sources and automatically clustering the identities based on the attributes to form recommended roles. The recommended roles may be modified by intervention of an administrator. Additionally, the recommended roles may be aggregated by defining the role definition as an attribute of each constituent identity, and re-clustering the identities to generate refined roles. The recommended, modified, and/or refined roles may then be utilized in a role based control system, such as a role based access control system. Periodically performing the role discovery process provides a means to audit a role based access control system.

Abstract: Policies defining the entitlements to be assigned to a new identity joining a role are automatically generated. An automatic policy assigns a new identity the entitlements commonly owned by a predetermined number of identities in the role, which may be all of the role identities. A conditional policy recommends that a new identity be assigned the non-commonly-owned entitlements associated with the role identity whose non-entitlement attributes most closely match the non-entitlement attributes of the new identity. This may be automatically determined by iterating through a vector that maps the non-commonly-owned entitlements with the non-entitlement attributes of each role identity, comparing the non-entitlement attributes of the new identity to find the closest match. The non-commonly-owned entitlements of that identity are then recommended to be assigned to the new identity, upon approval.

Abstract: A role hierarchy is automatically generated by hierarchically ranking roles in a role based control system, each role including a plurality of identities having attributes. Iteratively at each hierarchical level: each non-cohesive role (wherein, in this case, at least one attribute is not possessed by every identity in the role) is replaced, at the same hierarchical level, by a cohesive role formed by grouping identities having at least one common attribute. The remaining identities are clustered into children roles based on attributes other than the common attribute, and the children roles are added to the role hierarchy at a hierarchical level below the cohesive role. If no common attribute exists in the non-cohesive role, the role is clustered into two or more new roles based on all the attributes in the role, and the non-cohesive role is replaced with the new roles at the same hierarchical level.