An Ontology for Enforcing Security and Privacy Policies on Mobile Devices

Mobile devices have experienced explosive growth and rapid adoption. These devices have also become troves of security and privacy data of the consumers that utilize them. What makes mobile devices unique from traditional computing platforms is the additional sensing components they contain and their ease of access which allow consumers to make these devices a part of their lives. Additionally these devices are fragmented in operating systems, sensing capabilities, and device manufacturers. In this paper we define an ontology that can be utilized as a foundation for enforcing security and privacy policies across all mobile devices, and use the ontology to define policies and to model knowledge elements for mobile devices. We also identify areas where the policies can be applied, including whether to enforce policies on the device or in the cloud.