Discriminating data protection system
First Claim
1. A non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon an agent program that instructs an electronic computing device to at least:
- determine, in response to a trigger which indicates a likely theft or loss of the device, a first point in time prior to the trigger, said first point in time being associated with a last known use prior to the theft or loss of the electronic computing device;
identify a first set of files on the device that were created prior to said first point in time;
identify a second set of files on the device that were created between said first point in time and the trigger, and which were therefore potentially created by an innocent user after the theft or loss of the device; and
execute, in connection with the theft or loss, a discriminating data protection policy that treats the first set of files differently from the second set of files.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A data protection system selectively deletes data from an electronic device when the device is reported as lost or stolen, or when another data protection triggering event occurs. Different data files may, for example, be treated differently depending on when such files were created. For example, data files that were created while the computing device was known to be in the owner'"'"'s possession may be deleted, while data files created after the electronic device left the owner'"'"'s possession may be left intact (since they may have been created by an innocent user). Data files created between these two points in time may be quarantined so that they later be restored, if appropriate.
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Citations
19 Claims
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1. A non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon an agent program that instructs an electronic computing device to at least:
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determine, in response to a trigger which indicates a likely theft or loss of the device, a first point in time prior to the trigger, said first point in time being associated with a last known use prior to the theft or loss of the electronic computing device; identify a first set of files on the device that were created prior to said first point in time; identify a second set of files on the device that were created between said first point in time and the trigger, and which were therefore potentially created by an innocent user after the theft or loss of the device; and execute, in connection with the theft or loss, a discriminating data protection policy that treats the first set of files differently from the second set of files. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A system for protecting data, the system comprising:
an electronic computing device having a processor and a memory, the electronic computing device configured to; determine, in response to a trigger which indicates that the device has likely been lost or stolen, a first point in time associated with a last known use prior to the theft or loss of the electronic computing device, said first point in time being prior to said trigger; identify a first set of files on the device that were created prior to said first point in time; identify a second set of files on the device that were created between said first point in time and the trigger, and which were therefore potentially created by an innocent user after the theft or loss of the device; and execute, in connection with the theft or loss, a discriminating data protection policy that treats the first set of files differently from the second set of files. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14)
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15. A method for protecting data stored on an electronic computing device until ownership of the data can be determined, the method comprising:
by the electronic computing device under control of an agent program; determining, in response to a trigger which indicates that the device has likely been lost or stolen, a first point in time associated with a last known use prior to a theft or loss of the electronic computing device, said trigger occurring after said first point in time; identifying a first set of files on the device that were created prior to said first point in time; identifying a second set of files on the device that were created between said first point in time and the trigger, and which were therefore potentially created by an innocent user after the theft or loss of the device; and executing, in connection with the theft or loss, a discriminating data protection policy that treats the first set of files differently from the second set of files. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17, 18, 19)
Specification