| Information flow control regulates where information is allowed to travel within an information system and between information systems (as opposed to who is allowed to access the information) and without explicit regard to subsequent accesses to that information. Specific examples of flow control enforcement can be found in boundary protection devices (e.g., proxies, application layer gateways, cross domain guards, content filters) employing rule sets or establish configuration settings restricting information system services, provide a packet-filtering capability based on header information, or message-filtering capability based on content (e.g., using key word searches or document characteristics). Actions to support this requirement include, but are not limited to checking all transferred information for malware, implementing dirty word list searches on transferred information, and applying the same protection measures to metadata (e.g., security attributes) that is applied to the information payload.
Rationale for non-applicability:
Applications designed to control information flow are outside the scope of this SRG. The transfer of information across security domains is a function of the MOS, to the extent the MOS even supports multiple security domains or permits transfer from one domain to another. This IA control is more appropriate to network guards, which do not run on mobile devices. |
