A Scheme for Protecting the Information Leakage Via Portable Devices

Information leakage from corporate computer systems is a big social problem in terms of the protection of corporate assets and customers´ privacy. Digital assets are usually brought out of companies with the portable devices such as USB memory sticks, PDAs, and laptop PCs. This paper proposes a scheme that protects the information leakage via portable devices so that the access to sensitive files on a storage device attached to a computing device is allowed only when the latter is located inside the company and is connected to the company´s network. To detect this, we use the IP addresses of the company and the computing device, but also a challenge-response authentication protocol to prevent such attacks that simulate the company´s system to camouflage the computing device´s location.