A Flexible Authentication and Authorisation Mechanism for Securing Transactions in Digital Ecosystem

This paper firstly introduces the newly emerged collaborative technology termed as Digital Ecosystem. The concept of Digital Ecosystem and the existing research in this area are discussed in detail. Next, the paper outlines several issues that need to be solved for a successful implementation of Digital Ecosystem environment. As the main focus of this paper is in the security area, we have identified several requirements to derive a secure Digital Ecosystem. Unfortunately, there is an apparent lack of research in Digital Ecosystem security mechanisms due to its newly emerged technology. Our review on the existing protection mechanisms from the established technology such as peer-to-peer, grid computing, and clientserver appears not to meet the Digital Ecosystem requirements. Therefore, we propose our unique solution to enable a flexible authentication and authorisation mechanism for Digital Ecosystem with the aim to provide a rigorous protection in maintaining the confidentiality and integrity of the resources.