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Preventing accidental data disclosure in modern operating systems

Published: 04 November 2013 Publication History

Abstract

Modern OSes such as Android, iOS, and Windows 8 have changed the way consumers interact with computing devices. Tasks are often completed by stringing together a collection of purpose-specific user applications (e.g., a barcode reader, a social networking app, a document viewer). As users direct this workflow between applications, it is difficult to predict the consequence of each step. Poor selection may result in accidental information disclosure when the target application unknowingly uses cloud services. This paper presents Aquifer as a policy framework and system for preventing accidental information disclosure in modern operating systems. In Aquifer, application developers define secrecy restrictions that protect the entire user interface workflow defining the user task. In doing so, Aquifer provides protection beyond simple permission checks and allows applications to retain control of data even after it is shared.

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        cover image ACM Conferences
        CCS '13: Proceedings of the 2013 ACM SIGSAC conference on Computer & communications security
        November 2013
        1530 pages
        ISBN:9781450324779
        DOI:10.1145/2508859
        Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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        Published: 04 November 2013

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        Author Tags

        1. access control
        2. information flow control
        3. os security

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