Modeling Privilege Access using NGAC for Cloud Attack Landscape

Modeling Privilege Access using NGAC for Cloud Attack Landscape | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Modeling Privilege Access using NGAC for Cloud Attack Landscape Sai Sitharaman, Deepti Gupta, Mudit Tyagi, Hassan Karim This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-6986372/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract The adoption of public clouds, private clouds, and on-premise environments has grown significantly. This business-critical transformation and migration to the cloud have greatly amplified the risks associated with privileged access mismanagement. Traditional Privileged Access Management (PAM) and Identity and Access Management (IAM) solutions struggle to adequately address sophisticated threats, such as privilege escalations, lateral movements, and misconfigurations. To bridge these critical gaps, we propose an innovative PAM framework using the NIST’s Next Generation Access Control (NGAC) applying Hypergraph semantics. We develop model NGAC policy graph as labeled hypergraphs and hy-peredges and apply set-theoretic semantics to evaluate policies as part of the enforcement engine. We establish multi-source, multi-destination policy graphs based on dynamic graph traversals and constraint validations. This unique approach captures dynamic, multi-dimensional privilege relationships , enabling fine-grained, context-aware policy enforcement across diverse cloud infrastructures. Our comprehensive experimental evaluation demonstrates that NGAC combined with hypergraph representations significantly outperforms conventional Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC) and traditional NGAC graph models, reducing the complexity of privilege mismanagement use-cases from superlinear O(n k) in traditional methods to logarithmic O(n log(n)) in our case, thus markedly improving scalability. Real-world cloud infrastructure use cases validate our method’s ability to swiftly identify over-privileged users, unauthorized privilege escalations, and potential lateral movement attack pathways. This work introduces a novel theoretical framework for dynamic privilege management, fundamentally altering the landscape of access control in distributed cloud systems. By delivering a robust and scalable solution for privilege management in multi-cloud environments , our research provides a critical advancement in cybersecurity practice, offering actionable insights for mitigating high-risk cloud vulner-abilities in near real-time. Privilege Access Management (PAM) NGAC Policy Control Attack Surface Cloud Access Control Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) Just-In-Time (JIT) Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-6986372","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":479787433,"identity":"e0885980-6886-417c-a63a-e116eaff0e9f","order_by":0,"name":"Sai Sitharaman","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Zetafence","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Sai","middleName":"","lastName":"Sitharaman","suffix":""},{"id":479787434,"identity":"f283070f-a56c-498b-b6ac-2095cfe8faf3","order_by":1,"name":"Deepti Gupta","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAAyElEQVRIiWNgGAWjYDCCAxBKDkOEgJYEBmMeBgiDeC2JPURr4TvAfk268Idd+n7202kSP38wyPHdSMCvRfIAT5n0jITk3B6e3G2SPUAXShLSYnCAJ02aJ4E5t4chd5s0yIUbiNRSn87D/xaspZ4ILezHgFoOJ/BIQGxJMCDol8M8zNYz0o4b9tx4u9myJ03CcOaZB/i18B1vf3i7wKZanr0/d+ONHzY28nzHCdjCwMxjwIzElSCgHAzYHzATVDMKRsEoGAUjGwAA+x9B/MgvW/UAAAAASUVORK5CYII=","orcid":"","institution":"Texas A\u0026M University-Central Texas","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Deepti","middleName":"","lastName":"Gupta","suffix":""},{"id":479787439,"identity":"196019c9-8aa2-40bf-b919-036e4369fde1","order_by":2,"name":"Mudit Tyagi","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Zetafence","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Mudit","middleName":"","lastName":"Tyagi","suffix":""},{"id":479787440,"identity":"14ee4f00-3eea-4083-b7e8-71313aec8a20","order_by":3,"name":"Hassan Karim","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Stable Cyber","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Hassan","middleName":"","lastName":"Karim","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2025-06-26 20:53:12","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-6986372/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-6986372/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":92386326,"identity":"4d3187d4-ac8b-49a8-8777-28a4a3f82f24","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-09-29 07:31:55","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":954288,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"ModelingPrivilegeAccessusingNGACforCloudAttackLandscape.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-6986372/v1_covered_945146ca-5f9d-409c-abf6-90fcca5f509a.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"Modeling Privilege Access using NGAC for Cloud Attack Landscape","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":true,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Privilege Access Management (PAM), NGAC, Policy Control, Attack Surface, Cloud Access Control, Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG), Just-In-Time (JIT)","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-6986372/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-6986372/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"The adoption of public clouds, private clouds, and on-premise environments has grown significantly. 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Our comprehensive experimental evaluation demonstrates that NGAC combined with hypergraph representations significantly outperforms conventional Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC) and traditional NGAC graph models, reducing the complexity of privilege mismanagement use-cases from superlinear O(n k) in traditional methods to logarithmic O(n log(n)) in our case, thus markedly improving scalability. Real-world cloud infrastructure use cases validate our method’s ability to swiftly identify over-privileged users, unauthorized privilege escalations, and potential lateral movement attack pathways. This work introduces a novel theoretical framework for dynamic privilege management, fundamentally altering the landscape of access control in distributed cloud systems. 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