| 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.
A few examples of flow control restrictions include: keeping export controlled information from being transmitted in the clear to the Internet, blocking outside traffic claiming to be from within the organization and not passing any web requests to the Internet that are not from the internal web proxy. Information flow control policies and enforcement mechanisms are commonly employed by organizations to control the flow of information between designated sources and destinations (e.g., networks, individuals, devices) within information systems and between interconnected systems.
Flow control is based on the characteristics of the information and/or the information path. Flow control is also based on the characteristics of the information and/or the information path. Specific examples of flow control enforcement can be found in boundary protection devices (e.g., proxies, gateways, guards, encrypted tunnels, firewalls, and routers) 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). |
