access enforcement mechanism
A control implementation — realized as hardware, software (e.g., access control lists, access control matrices), firmware, cryptography, or combinations thereof — that carries out an organization's access control policy by permitting or denying subjects (users or processes) the ability to interact with objects (files, records, devices, domains, programs). It is distinguished from the policy itself by being the operative, runtime layer that actually applies decisions; the policy declares what is authorized, while the mechanism enforces it. In practice, the field uses the term to denote the full range of such implementations deployed at multiple tiers — system, network boundary, application, and service levels — with the understanding that mechanisms at deeper tiers (e.g., application-level) supplement rather than replace system-level enforcement.
Senses
No definition is given in NIST SP 800-171r3. The term is attested in use at 1 citation in that document; a definition is pending curation.
A category of security safeguard — comprising hardware features, software controls, operating procedures, and combinations thereof — that operationalizes an access control policy by actively permitting or denying subjects (users or processes) access to objects (files, devices, records, domains, programs). Examples canonically cited in NIST SP 800-53 include access control lists, access control matrices, and cryptography. Organizations pair these mechanisms with their chosen access control policies (identity-based, role-based, or rule-based) to govern access across the information system, and additionally deploy them at the application level when finer-grained protection is needed. In current practice under NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5, they are explicitly extended to the application and service level to provide increased information security and privacy.
Classifications
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Information Class
Variants
- plural
- access enforcement mechanisms
- possessive
- access enforcement mechanism's
- pluralpossessive
- access enforcement mechanisms'