All IAM glossary termsAuthorization · glossary
PBAC (Policy-Based Access Control)
Also known as: Policy-based access control
Definition
PBAC (Policy-Based Access Control) is the access control model where authorization decisions are made by evaluating declarative policy expressions against the request context.
In more depth
Generalizes RBAC and ABAC. The policy expression can reference any attribute of subject, resource, action, and environment. Implementations: Open Policy Agent (Rego), AWS Cedar, OPA Gatekeeper.
Common in microservices and Kubernetes admission control. Externalizing policy from application code is the operational benefit.
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