There are 1000 and one ways to protect electronic documents from unauthorized copying. But as soon as the document goes into an analog state (according to "Information technology. Electronic information exchange. Terms and definitions”, the concept of “analogue document” includes all traditional forms of presentation of documents on analog media: paper, photo and film, etc. The analog form of presentation can be converted into a discrete (electronic) form using various digitization methods), the number of ways to protect it from copying is sharply reduced, and the cost of their practical implementation is also rapidly increasing. For example, how it might look in the “right” company:
- Limit the number of places and applied technologies for converting an electronic document into an analog one.
- Limit the number of places and circle of persons allowed to familiarize themselves with the contents of analogue documents.
- Equip places for familiarization with the contents of an analog document with means of video recording, visual control
- etc.
In addition to the high cost, the use of such methods catastrophically reduces the efficiency of working with documents.
A compromise can be the use of our product .
Document security principle
With the help of SafeCopy, a unique copy of the document is made for each recipient, into which a hidden marking is introduced using affine transformations. In this case, the intervals between lines and characters of the text, the slope of characters, etc. may change slightly. The main advantage of such marking is that it cannot be removed without changing the content of the document. Watermarks are washed off with regular Paint, with affine transformations such a trick will not work.
Copies are issued to recipients in printed form or in electronic pdf format. In the event of a copy being leaked, the recipient can be guaranteed to be identified by the unique set of corruptions introduced into each copy. Since the entire text is marked, literally a few paragraphs are enough for this. The rest of the page may be missing / wrinkled / closed with the palm of your hand / filled with coffee (underline as necessary). What we have not seen.
What is labeling for?
Protecting confidential documents. The scenario is described above. Briefly: we marked the copies, gave them to the recipients and we are vigilant. As soon as a copy of the document “appeared in unauthorized places”, it was compared with all marked copies and the owner of the “revealed copy” was promptly identified.
To determine the spy, alternately impose a "revealed copy" on a copy of each recipient of the document. Whoever has a higher percentage of matching pixels is a spy. But it is better to see once in the picture.
The imposition of the "revealed copy" on all marked ones is not done manually, but automatically. Marked copies are not stored in the system, so as not to waste gigabytes of disk in vain. The system only stores a set of unique marking features for each recipient and generates copies instantly.
Document Authentication. You can read about the methods of manufacturing security printing products at . In fact, they come down to the production of forms with various kinds of markings - watermarks, special inks, etc. Examples of such products are banknotes, insurance policies, driver's licenses, passports, etc. Such products cannot be made on a conventional printer. But on it you can print a document with affine text transformations. What does it give?
By printing a form with an inconspicuous marking of the text, you can check its authenticity simply by the presence of the marking. At the same time, the uniqueness of the marking allows not only to verify the authenticity, but also to identify the specific individual or legal entity to whom the form was transferred. If there is no marking or it points to another recipient, then the form is fake.
Such marking can be used both independently, for example, for strict reporting forms, and in conjunction with other protection methods, for example, to protect passports.
Bringing violators to justice. Big leaks cost companies a lot of money. In order for the punishment of the violator not to be limited to a reprimand, it is necessary to bring him to justice in court. We have patented our own document protection method so that the results of SafeCopy will be accepted as evidence in court.
What can labeling not do?
Marking is not a panacea in the fight against data leaks and the protection of copies of documents. When implementing it in your enterprise, it is important to understand three key limitations:
Marking protects the document, not its text. The text can be memorized and recited. The text from the marked copy can be rewritten and sent in the messenger. Nothing will save you from these threats. It is important to understand here that in the world of total fake, leaking only parts of the text of a document is nothing more than electronic gossip. For a leak to have value, it must contain data to verify the authenticity of the leaked information - seals, signatures, etc. This is where labeling comes in handy.
Marking does not prohibit copying and photographing copies of the document. But if scans or photos of documents “pop up”, it will help in finding the offender. In fact, copy protection is preventive in nature. Employees know that they can be identified and punished based on photographs and copies of documents, and they either look for other (more labor-intensive) ways of “draining” or refuse it altogether.
Marking determines whose copy is leaked, not who leaked it. An example from life - the document leaked. The marking showed that a copy of Ivan Neudachnikov was leaked (name and surname changed). The security service begins an investigation and it turns out that Ivan left the document on the table in his office, where he was photographed by an intruder. Ivan - a reprimand, the security service - a quest to find the culprits among the people who visited the office of Unlucky. Such a quest is not trivial, but it is simpler than searching among people who visited the offices of all recipients of the document.
Mix but do not shake
If the labeling system is not integrated with other corporate systems, then its scope is likely to be limited only to paper workflow, which has become less and less over the years. And in this case, the use of marking can hardly be called convenient - you will have to manually upload each document and make copies for it.
But if you make the labeling system part of the overall IT and information security landscape, a synergistic effect becomes noticeable. The most useful integrations are:
Integration with EDMS. The EDMS identifies a subset of documents that require marking. Each time a new user requests such a document from the EDMS, he receives a marked copy of it.
Integration with print management systems. Print management systems act as a proxy between users' PCs and printers in an organization. They can determine that a document sent for printing requires marking, for example, by the presence of a sensitivity label in the file attributes or by the presence of a file in the corporate confidential document repository. In this case, the user who sent the document for printing will receive its marked copy from the printer's tray. In a simpler scenario, you can make a separate virtual printer, sending documents to which marked copies will come out of the tray.
Email integration. Many organizations do not allow the use of email to send confidential documents, but these prohibitions are often violated. Somewhere because of carelessness, somewhere because of tight deadlines or a direct instruction from management. So that information security is not a stick in the wheel of progress and brings money to the company, we propose to implement the following scenario, which allows you to safely send via internal e-mail and save on sending documents by courier.
When sending a document, the user adds a sign of the need for marking. In our case, a business email address. The mail server, receiving a letter with this attribute, makes copies of all attachments for each recipient and sends them instead of the original attachments. To do this, the marking system component is installed on the mail server. In the case of Microsoft Exchange, he plays the role of the so-called. transport agent. This component does not interfere with the work of the mail server.
Source: habr.com