Information security method and appparatus

摘要

A method and apparatus for ensuring that important confidential or proprietary information is not inadvertently released through email and similar transmissions. When file security firewall resident on a file security server or another network node receives an email intended for transmission, it determines whether the file revision history should be removed from any attachments. If so, the email is buffered and the attachments are extracted for file revision history by a file revision history remover associated with the firewall or an available proprietary file revision history remover. Once the file revision history removal is attempted, successfully or unsuccessfully, a reformed email is created, including either the original attachments or, in their place, a version of the attachment from which file revision history has been removed.

主权项

1. A method for processing email transmissions, comprising:
extracting one or more attachments associated with an email message; determining for each of one or more files of the one or more attachments whether a file revision history removal is required, wherein determining whether the file revision history removal is required comprises at least determining whether a file revision history removal flag indicating a sender's preference has been set; further determining, for each file requiring the file revision history removal, whether the file revision history is proprietary or non-proprietary; sending each file requiring the file revision history removal to a proprietary file revision history remover if the file revision history is proprietary, and to a file revision history remover if the file revision history is non-proprietary; processing each file requiring file revision history removal by removing the corresponding proprietary file revision history using the proprietary file revision history remover and by removing the corresponding non-proprietary file revision history using the file revision history remover to produce one or more processed attachments; reforming the email message by attaching any processed attachments and any extracted attachments containing no file revision history; and forwarding the reformed email message toward a corresponding email message destination.