Access Control Models

There are several different access control models available. At this stage of your IT career, you aren’t expected to design access based on any of the models. However, you should be aware of the models that exist and have a basic understanding of how they work.

The following sections summarize some basic characteristics of the Mandatory Access Control (MAC) model, the Discretionary Access Control (DAC) model, and the Role-based Access Control (RBAC) model.

DAC

The Discretionary Access Control (DAC) model provides the most granular level of access control. It allows you to assign permissions to subjects at the most basic level. For example, you can assign read permission to a single user. Files systems such as New Technology File System (NTFS, used by Microsoft) and Network File System (NFS, used on UNIX-based systems such as Solaris and Linux) use the DAC model.