HACS: Access Control for Streaming Data Across Heterogeneous Communication Models

Streaming Big Data pipelines frequently use multiple platforms connected to each other for performing analytics with different communication models. Existing techniques like Access Control Lists (ACLs) or Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) are unable to address access control at the granularity of an individual tuple. Moreover, ACLs and RBAC fail to impose uniform access control over heterogeneous streaming platforms. In this paper, we present a unified mechanism to insert access control policies into data streams at the point of ingestion and enforce it across multiple platforms that use different communication models like publish-subscribe and point to point. We exemplify our solution through implementation with Apache Kafka and Apache Storm. We further illustrate the enforcement of access control in join queries involving streams with different access control rules.