A Proposal for the Deterrence of Information Leakage Using Anti-virus Software

Abstract

In recent years, the leakage of confidential files through the P2P (peer-to-peer) file sharing software has become a problem. Once sensitive files have been leaked to a P2P network, they are distributed rapidly and at random to a great many computers, bringing the danger of far-reaching damage. To deal with this, we propose a method to control the diffusion of sensitive file leakage on P2P networks by deleting the leaked sensitive files in the destination PC of the P2P user. In this method, we focus on the characteristic of anti-virus software that reacts to the unique patterns of a virus, automatically isolating and deleting a file concerned. By using the unique pattern of a virus to make the leaked sensitive file appear as a viral infection file, the anti-virus software installed on the destination PC will automatically delete the file. This is the concept of our method.