ACCESS CONTROL DEVICE, AND ACCESS CONTROL METHOD

• US 20090254658A1
• Filed: 12/05/2005
• Published: 10/08/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 12/22/2004
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Hashimoto, Yuji, Iino, Satoshi, Tamura, Tomofumi, Iida, Kenichiro, Kamikura, Atsushi
• Application Number:
  US11/721,784
• Publication Number:
  US 20090254658A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/225
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4511 using domain name system [DNS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/101 Access control lists [ACL]

Abstract

An access control unit and an access control method are provided for controlling an access to a secure host efficiently by reducing the consumption of resources such as a memory. In this access control device, an access control unit (302) performs an access control in accordance with whether the target IP address and the sender IP address of a packet are the IP address of a secure terminal or host or the IP address of a general terminal or host, while referring to a host list stored in a host information storage unit (304). The host information storage unit (304) stores the domain name and the IP address of a general host in an external network (200), as the host list. A host list updating unit (305) inquires the host list of the host information storage unit (304) whether the unregistered host is the secure host or the general host, and updates the host list in accordance with the result of the inquiry.

Claims

1. An access control apparatus comprising:

a storage section that stores a host list indicating hosts, out of hosts in a first network, access to which is restricted or access to which is not restricted from a terminal in a second network;

a reception section that receives a packet whose destination is set to a host in the first network from a terminal in the second network;

a control section that controls, when the destination host of the received packet is registered in the host list, whether to transmit the packet to the host or discard the packet; and

an updating section that acquires, when the destination host of the received packet is not registered in the host list, information as to whether or not access from the terminal to the host is permitted from outside and updates the host list.

2. The access control apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the updating section comprises:

a reverse DNS lookup request transmission section that inquires whether or not the destination address of the packet is registered in a server in the first network as an address of the host to which access is restricted;

a reverse DNS lookup response reception section that receives a reverse DNS lookup response indicating whether or not the destination address is registered in the server; and

a writing control section that controls writing into the host list of the destination address according to the reverse DNS lookup response.

3. The access control apparatus according to claim 1, wherein, when the destination host of the received packet is not registered in the host list, the control section determines whether to transmit the packet to the host or discard the packet according to the information acquired from outside by the updating section.

4. The access control apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a second storage section that stores information as to whether the terminal in the second network is a secure terminal which is permitted to access to all hosts in the first network or a general terminal which is permitted to access to only part of hosts in the first network,

wherein, when the transmission source of the received packet is a secure terminal, the control section transmits the packet to the host.

5. The access control apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the storage section deletes the host list periodically.

6. An access control method for an access control apparatus that stores a host list indicating hosts, out of hosts in a first network, access to which is restricted or access to which is not restricted from a terminal in a second network, the access control method comprising the steps of:

receiving a packet whose destination is set to a host in the first network from a terminal in the second network;

controlling, when the destination host of the received packet is registered in the host list, whether to transmit the packet to the host or discard the packet; and

acquiring, when the destination host of the received packet is not registered in the host list, information as to whether or not access from the terminal to the host is permitted from outside and updating the host list.