The IP Time Bomb: Why DAC Fails When Collaborating with Contractors

When managing sensitive intellectual property (IP), especially during collaboration with external partners or contractors, the choice of access control model is the single most critical decision you will make. While it seems simple, the widely used Discretionary Access Control (DAC) model often creates a long-term risk that can compromise your IP when those collaborators eventually become competitors.

The Pitfall of Discretionary Access Control (DAC)

DAC is the most common access control model found in standard operating systems and file shares. In a DAC environment, the Owner of a resource (the creator) is responsible for setting permissions and can decide who can access the file and what they can do with it (read, write, modify).

The Security Failure: Uncontrolled Proliferation

The inherent risk of DAC in a collaborative, sensitive project is the risk of Uncontrolled Proliferation and the Trojan Horse vulnerability:

1. Contractor as Owner: When a contractor creates a document—a piece of source code, a design file, or a research paper—they automatically become the owner in the DAC model.
2. Discretionary Authority: As the owner, the contractor has the discretionary right to set permissions, grant them, or revoke them.
3. The Time Bomb: If the contractor, who will soon become a competitor, decides to grant full read/write access to a third-party account, or simply downloads and stores a copy of the IP outside the controlled repository, the system has no mechanism to stop them.

The system’s security failed because the authority to protect the asset was delegated to the very party whose long-term interests may conflict with the organization’s, creating an unavoidable IP Leakage vector.

The Compliance and Audit Failure of DAC

Beyond the core IP risk, DAC fundamentally fails to meet modern regulatory and compliance standards, such as those related to financial data (SOX), health information (HIPAA), or general data privacy (GDPR).

DAC Inherently Fails Central, Auditable Control

Compliance and governance frameworks require central, auditable control over sensitive data. This means an organization must be able to prove, at any moment, that the system’s access configuration adheres to corporate and legal policies.

DAC fails this requirement because:

• Decentralization: Access decisions are made individually by hundreds or thousands of data owners. This creates a chaotic, non-standardized access structure that is impossible to audit consistently.
• Opacity: Auditing requires checking every file’s permissions, which constantly change based on individual user discretion.
• Inconsistent Policy: There is no mechanism to enforce a system-wide rule like, “Only employees with ‘Level 4 Security Clearance’ can access this type of data.” A DAC owner could easily grant access to a Level 1 user, directly violating the spirit of a central security policy.

Proposing the Solution: RBAC and MAC

To protect IP long-term and satisfy legal audit obligations, an organization must transition away from DAC to a centrally governed model like Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) or, ideally, Mandatory Access Control (MAC).

RBAC: Centralized Control and Audibility

RBAC is the practical, commercial standard for mitigating DAC risk.

Under RBAC, permissions are tied not to the user or the file owner, but to a Role (e.g., ‘Core Developer’, ‘External Consultant’, ‘Project Manager’). A centralized administrator assigns users to roles, and roles are pre-configured with the minimum necessary permissions (the principle of Least Privilege).

How RBAC addresses the DAC failure:

• No Owner Discretion: An External Consultant who creates a file is given the ‘External Consultant’ role. If that role is defined to have read-only access to ‘Project A’ and no right to grant permissions, the contractor cannot bypass this rule.
• Auditable Policy: Auditing becomes dramatically easier. Instead of checking every file, you only need to check the permissions assigned to the roles and which users are assigned to those roles.

MAC: The Gold Standard for Long-Term IP Protection

While RBAC is sufficient for most scenarios, MAC (Mandatory Access Control) offers the highest level of IP protection because it enforces the policy based on data classification, removing all remaining elements of human discretion.

How MAC Protects Collaboration and IP:

1. Labeling: All sensitive assets (files, folders, codebases) are tagged with mandatory security Labels (e.g.,
   TOP_SECRET_IP

   ).

2. Clearance: All users (employees and contractors) are assigned a corresponding Clearance Level (e.g.,
   Contractor_Access

   ,

   Core_Employee_Access

   ).

3. Mandatory Rule: The system strictly enforces the rule: A user can only access a resource if their Clearance matches or exceeds the resource’s Label.

Crucially, the contractor cannot change the file’s label (which would lower the security requirement), nor can they unilaterally grant access to a user whose clearance doesn’t meet the mandated requirement. Even if a contractor owns a document, the system security policy dictates who can read it, thus protecting the IP long after the contract ends.

By adopting MAC or a rigorous RBAC implementation, you transform your access structure from a decentralized democracy into a centrally governed monarchy, ensuring the long-term integrity and confidentiality of your most valuable intellectual property.

The IP Time Bomb: Why DAC Fails When Collaborating with Contractors by Psyops Prime is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.