Policy-based dynamic information flow control on mobile devices

• US 9,253,210 B2
• Filed: 03/01/2013
• Issued: 02/02/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 04/26/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Muppidi, Sridhar R., Kodeswaran, Palanivel Andiappan, Mukherjea, Sougata, Nandakumar, Vikrant, Shalini, Kapoor
• Primary Examiner(s): BROWN, CHRISTOPHER J
• Application Number:
  US13/781,823
• Publication Number:
  US 20130291055A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,068 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/20 for managing network security; network security policies in general filtering policies H04L63/0227
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/086 using security domains

Abstract

A method for securing data on a mobile device that supports both enterprise and personal applications. According to the method, information flows and data accesses are tracked on the device at run-time to enable access control decisions to be performed based on a policy, such as an enterprise privacy policy that has been distributed to the device from an enterprise server. The policy may be updated by events at the device as well as at the enterprise server.

Claims

1. A method operative on a mobile device to enforce an enterprise policy, the mobile device including a hardware element and being configured to execute both enterprise and personal applications, the enterprise policy configured to prevent enterprise data from being leaked to a personal application running in the mobile device, comprising:

receiving and storing in a data store an enterprise policy defining a permitted run-time execution context when multiple applications execute concurrently on the mobile device;

responsive to an application seeking access to enterprise data stored in the mobile device, retrieving the enterprise policy, together with a list of applications currently running on the mobile device;

determining, based at least in part on the list of applications currently running on the mobile device, whether the run-time execution context identified in the enterprise policy is satisfied;

when the run-time execution context identified in the enterprise policy is satisfied, releasing to the application sensory data captured from a user input to the mobile device and enabling the application to access the enterprise data;

wherein at least the determining step is carried out in software executing in a hardware element.

2. The method as described in claim 1 further including:

receiving and storing a key; and

using the key to encrypt the enterprise data.

3. The method as described in claim 2 further including:

when the run-time execution context identified in the enterprise policy is satisfied, applying the key to decrypt the enterprise data; and

providing the enterprise data to the application.

4. The method as described in claim 1 further including updating the enterprise policy.

5. The method as described in claim 4 wherein the enterprise policy is updated upon a trigger event at one of:

the mobile device, and an enterprise server.

6. The method as described in claim 4 wherein the updating step includes executing an integrity check at the mobile device prior to permitting update to the enterprise policy.

7. The method as described in claim 1 wherein the enterprise policy is one of:

a static policy that defines an attribute that must be verified before permitting the application to access the enterprise data, and a dynamic policy that defines a run-time behavior that must be satisfied before permitting the application to access the enterprise data.