Image forming device and method, and image forming system
The image forming device uses a trusted computing monitoring module to manage operation authorities based on job classification, addressing data leakage risks and enhancing security through a multi-level security system.
Patent Information
- Application Number
- CN202110101318.9
- Authority / Receiving Office
- CN · China
- Patent Type
- Patents(China)
- Current Assignee / Owner
- Filing Date
- 2021-01-26
- Publication Date
- 2024-12-24
- Estimated Expiration
- 2041-01-26
AI Technical Summary
Existing image forming devices lack effective security measures to prevent data leakage, particularly in high-confidentiality applications, and are vulnerable to attacks from malicious programs.
An image forming device and method that incorporates a trusted computing monitoring module to determine image formation confidentiality levels based on job classification, using a trusted computing monitoring module to manage operation authorities and enhance security through a multi-level security system.
Enhances data security by dynamically controlling operation authorities based on confidentiality levels, ensuring secure data processing and preventing unauthorized access.
Smart Images
Figure CN112783452B_ABST
Abstract
Description
Technical Field
[0001] The present invention relates to the field of printing technology, and in particular to an image forming device and method, and an image forming system. Background Art
[0002] With the advancement of electronic science and technology, the development of image forming apparatus has become more and more mature. However, as a computer peripheral device, image forming apparatus is vulnerable to attacks by lawless elements (such as hackers). Taking a laser printer (one of many types of image forming apparatus) with scanning and / or faxing functions as an example, the scanned or faxed data may carry the user's confidential data. Even the photosensitive drum, the core component of laser imaging, may carry the user's confidential data to be printed. Once these data are leaked, they will cause a lot of unnecessary trouble to the user.
[0003] Therefore, it is very important to conduct security control at every step from the generation of a print job to the use of an image forming device to print out a document, especially for applications with high confidentiality requirements. However, the image forming control program itself and the running process inside the image forming device may also be attacked by malicious programs. However, the existing technology lacks corresponding technical guarantees for such security risks, resulting in the risk of data leakage in the image forming device. Summary of the invention
[0004] In order to solve the technical problem that data leakage may exist in the existing image forming devices, the present application proposes an image forming device, an image forming method and an image forming system, which can determine the image formation confidentiality level in combination with the confidentiality level of the job through a trusted computing monitoring module in the image forming device, and determine the operation authority of the image forming device based on the image formation confidentiality level; thereby better ensuring the security of the job data in the image forming device, and the trusted computing monitoring module itself is empirically verified and trustworthy, so the trusted computing monitoring module is used to determine the image formation confidentiality level to further increase the security of data processing in the image forming device.
[0005] The present application provides an image forming device, comprising:
[0006] A job receiving module receives a file to be printed from a print driver, wherein the file to be printed is associated with a job classification level;
[0007] A data parsing module, parsing the data in the to-be-printed file to obtain the job classification level associated with the to-be-printed file;
[0008] A trusted computing monitoring module, used to monitor the data parsing module, and match the corresponding image formation level according to the job level associated with the to-be-printed file parsed by the data parsing module;
[0009] The image forming security level is used to determine the operation authority information of each imaging processing module of the current image forming device.
[0010] In one embodiment, the image forming security level includes a plurality of device security levels, each device security level corresponds to a different security function, and as the device security level increases, the security function of the image forming device increases.
[0011] In one embodiment, the image formation security level includes an unlimited use level, a limited use level, and a stop use level.
[0012] In one implementation, the job security level includes a print driver security level and a file security level.
[0013] The present application also provides an image forming method, applied to an image forming device, the method comprising:
[0014] Receiving a file to be printed sent by a print driver, wherein the file to be printed is associated with a job classification;
[0015] Parsing the data in the to-be-printed file to obtain the job classification level associated with the to-be-printed file;
[0016] Matching the corresponding image with the job classification level associated with the parsed file to be printed to form a classification level;
[0017] The image forming security level is used to determine the operation authority information of each imaging processing module of the current image forming device.
[0018] In one embodiment, the image forming security level includes a plurality of device security levels, each device security level corresponds to a different security function, and as the device security level increases, the security function of the image forming device increases.
[0019] In one embodiment, the image formation security level includes an unlimited use level, a limited use level, and a stop use level.
[0020] In one implementation, the job security level includes a print driver security level and a file security level.
[0021] The present application also provides an image forming system, comprising the image forming device described in any of the above embodiments.
[0022] In one embodiment, it also includes a print driver, which is used to configure its print driver security level and add the print driver security level and the file security level to the job header information of the file to be printed, so that the file to be printed is associated with the job security level.
[0023] The image forming device and method and the image forming system of the present application receive the file to be printed sent from the print driver, the file to be printed is associated with a job level, and the data in the file to be printed is parsed to obtain the job level associated with the file to be printed. The trusted computing monitoring module monitors the data parsing module, and matches the corresponding image formation level according to the job level associated with the file to be printed after parsing by the data parsing module. The image formation level is used to determine the operation authority information of each imaging processing module of the current image forming device. The trusted computing monitoring module can determine the image formation level according to the job level of the file to be printed, and then determine the operation authority of the image forming device according to the image formation level, so that the job level of the file to be printed can be safely controlled to ensure the security of the operation data in the image forming device. Moreover, the trusted computing monitoring module itself is verified by experience and is trustworthy, so the image formation level is determined by the trusted computing monitoring module to further increase the security of data processing of the image forming device. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0024] In order to more clearly illustrate the embodiments of the present application or the technical solutions of the prior art, the drawings required for use in the embodiments or the description of the prior art will be briefly introduced below. Obviously, the drawings described below are only some embodiments of the present application. For ordinary technicians in this field, other drawings can be obtained based on these drawings without paying any creative work.
[0025] Figure 1 A schematic diagram of the structure of an image forming device in one embodiment of the present application;
[0026] Figure 2 A schematic diagram of the structure of an image forming system in one embodiment of the present application;
[0027] Figure 3 Flow chart of an image forming method in one embodiment of the present application. DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0028] In order to facilitate the understanding of the present application, the present application will be described more fully below with reference to the relevant drawings. The preferred embodiments of the present application are given in the drawings. However, the present application can be implemented in many different forms and is not limited to the embodiments described herein. On the contrary, the purpose of providing these embodiments is to make the disclosure of the present application more thoroughly and comprehensively understood.
[0029] Unless otherwise defined, all technical and scientific terms used herein have the same meaning as those commonly understood by those skilled in the art to which this application belongs. The terms used herein in the specification of this application are only for the purpose of describing specific embodiments and are not intended to limit this application.
[0030] Some embodiments of the present application are described in detail below in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. In the absence of conflict, the following embodiments and features in the embodiments can be combined with each other.
[0031] Please refer to Figure 1 The embodiment of the present invention provides an image forming device 100, which includes a job receiving module 10, a data parsing module 20 and a trusted computing monitoring module 30. The job receiving module 10 receives a file to be printed from a print driver, and the file to be printed is associated with a job level. The data parsing module 20 parses the data in the file to be printed to obtain the job level associated with the file to be printed. The trusted computing monitoring module 30 is used to monitor the data parsing module 20, and match the corresponding image formation level according to the job level associated with the file to be printed after parsing by the data parsing module 20. Among them, the image formation level is used to determine the operation authority information of each imaging processing module of the current image forming device 100.
[0032] Job confidentiality includes print driver confidentiality and file confidentiality.
[0033] The print driver is installed in the terminal device. The image forming device 100 can be connected to the terminal device (eg, PC (Personal Computer)) via a wired network, a wireless network, or a USB connection. The print driver sends the to-be-printed file associated with the job classification to the image forming device 100 .
[0034] Different print driver confidentiality levels correspond to different user identity information, and different user identity information corresponds to different user authority levels. User identity information includes user name and login password.
[0035] For example, the user's permissions can be divided into ordinary employee permissions, group leader level permissions, and manager level permissions according to the user's identity information. Among them, the file security level of the to-be-printed files of employees with ordinary employee permissions is the ordinary level; the file security level of the to-be-printed files of employees with group leader level permissions is the first level security level; the file security level of the to-be-printed files of employees with manager level permissions is the second level security level, and so on.
[0036] The print driver obtains the device classification of the terminal device, and configures the print driver classification of the print driver according to the device classification. Specifically, a configuration file is stored in the confidential terminal device, and the configuration file stores the device classification of the terminal device. The device classification limits the user rights to use the terminal device. The print driver configures its own print driver classification by obtaining the device classification of the terminal device. When the image forming device 100 identifies the print driver classification of the file to be printed, the image forming device 100 can obtain the user authority level of the file to be printed. There is no configuration file stored in the non-confidential terminal device. Therefore, the device classification of the terminal device obtained by the print driver is blank information. The print driver can configure its own print driver classification to a general level, that is, there is no restriction on the use rights of the terminal device.
[0037] By configuring the print driver security level of the print driver according to the device security level of the terminal device, the print driver can dynamically configure its own print driver security level, and the device security level of the terminal device is stored in the configuration file with high stability. Therefore, the configuration of the print driver security level is more stable and reliable.
[0038] The file to be printed may be an electronic file, an original file pre-stored by the user in the terminal device, or intermediate format data after the user processes the original file through the application of the terminal device, or printable data recognizable by the image forming device. The intermediate format data is a format file between the original file and the printable data recognizable by the image forming device. For example, if the original file is in Word format, the intermediate format data may be a PDF format file or an XPS format file. Of course, it may also be other format files that can be thought of by technicians in this field, which will not be elaborated here.
[0039] The user selects the file confidentiality level selection display interface of the terminal device according to the confidentiality level of the file to be printed, clicks the corresponding option, and the print driver responds to the user's click operation and adds the selected file confidentiality option to the file to be printed through driver rendering to configure the file confidentiality level of the file to be printed. The file confidentiality level of the file to be printed can be, for example, ordinary file to be printed, confidential file to be printed, and top secret file to be printed.
[0040] Before configuring the file classification of the file to be printed, the user enters the user's identity information on the display interface of the terminal device, and the print driver obtains the user's identity information through the terminal device, thereby obtaining the print driver classification. When configuring the job classification of the file to be printed, the print driver adds the file classification to the job header information of the file to be printed and adds the print driver classification to the job header information of the file to be printed, so that the file to be printed is associated with the job classification.
[0041] The file classification and the print driver classification are both added to the job header information of the file to be printed, so that the data parsing module 20 can simultaneously obtain the job classification and the print driver classification by parsing the file to be printed without having to parse and obtain them separately, thereby simplifying the parsing operation of the image forming device 100.
[0042] Before sending the to-be-printed file associated with the job classification to the image forming device 100 , the print driver may further encrypt the to-be-printed file, or send the to-be-printed file to the image forming device 100 using a preset network protocol.
[0043] The terminal device and the image forming apparatus 100 may pre-agree on a key for encrypting the file to be printed. In the terminal device, the file to be printed is encrypted. After receiving the file to be printed, the image forming apparatus 100 decrypts the file to be printed according to the agreed key, thereby improving the security of the file to be printed sent by the terminal device to the image forming apparatus 100.
[0044] The terminal device and the image forming apparatus 100 may also agree to use a network protocol with a higher security level for mutual communication, thereby improving the security of the to-be-printed files sent by the terminal device to the image forming apparatus 100 and avoiding information leakage of the to-be-printed files.
[0045] The image forming apparatus 100 may store the key in a security chip.
[0046] The image forming device 100 is a multi-function printer (MFP) that integrates printing, copying, scanning and faxing functions. The image forming device 100 includes a plurality of imaging processing modules, and the imaging processing modules are used to control the imaging processing operations of the image forming device 100. Specifically, the imaging processing module is used to perform processing operations related to data transmission and reception, command transmission and reception, and engine control, for example, how to call an interface unit (including but not limited to a USB port, a wired network port, a wireless network port, etc.) through an application to receive and send data, commands, status, etc., and can also obtain the received printing parameters through the application and parse them into commands for controlling the engine mechanism to perform specific functions, such as pickup roller rotation parameters, etc.; in addition, for an image forming device 100 with user authority authentication or encryption / decryption processing functions, the imaging processing module is also configured to be able to perform user authority authentication or encryption / decryption processing functions; and the interface unit in the image forming device 100 can also receive print job data and print, scan, and fax commands from a drive device, or send scan and fax data, print, scan, and fax status information, etc. The imaging processing module may include a job receiving module 10, a data parsing module 20, a printing mechanism, a copying mechanism, a scanning mechanism, a fax mechanism, and the like.
[0047] The image forming device 100 is equipped with a trusted computing monitoring module 30. The image forming device 100 stores the identity information of the image forming device 100 in a write-once area. The write-once area may be a one-time programmable (OTP) memory of the image forming device 100, or a specific area of a security chip bundled with the image forming device 100. Of course, the write-once area may also be other secure storage media of the image forming device 100. The identity information of the image forming device 100 may be a unique serial number of the image forming device 100, which is unique to the image forming device 100 and is used to distinguish it from other image forming devices 100. The trusted computing monitoring module 30 obtains the unique serial number of the image forming device 100 and identifies a specific field in the unique serial number, thereby knowing what level of security function the current image forming device 100 adopts.
[0048] The image forming security level of the image forming device 100 may include multiple device security levels, and the multiple device security levels may be device security level 1, device security level 2, device security level 3, ..., device security level N, where N is an integer greater than or equal to 1. Each device security level corresponds to a different security function, and as the device security level increases, the security function of the image forming device 100 increases. For example, the lowest level of device security level has no restrictions on the functions of the image forming device 100, all security functions of the image forming device 100 are invalid, and the security is the lowest; the highest level of device security level restricts all functions of the image forming device 100, all security functions of the image forming device 100 are valid, and the security is the highest.
[0049] The image forming security level of the image forming device 100 may include three device security levels, and the three device security levels: device security level 1, device security level 2, and device security level 3 are unlimited use level, limited use level, and stop use level, respectively. When the image forming security level of the image forming device 100 is unlimited use level, each imaging processing module of the image forming device 100 is available, and the image forming device 100 can perform various functions of processing operations on the to-be-printed file. When the image forming security level of the image forming device 100 is limited use level, some imaging processing modules of the image forming device 100 are available, such as the printing and faxing functions of the image forming device 100 are available, and the scanning function is prohibited from being used. The image forming device 100 shields non-secure network protocol data and prohibits the use of some ports. The image forming device 100 can perform printing and faxing operations on the to-be-printed file. When the image forming security level of the image forming device 100 is the stop-use level, all imaging processing modules of the image forming device 100 are prohibited from use. Each imaging processing module of the image forming device 100 cannot perform any operation on the print file, and even closes the port, and the image forming device 100 does not interact with external devices in data.
[0050] Of course, the image formation security level of the image forming device 100 is not limited to the above-mentioned examples. The image formation security level of the image forming device 100 can also be configured according to specific design requirements. Specifically, different device security levels can have different security functions, so that different printing tasks can be completed according to the different security levels of these devices, effectively ensuring the security of information.
[0051] Trusted computing in the trusted computing monitoring module 30 is born for behavioral security and is widely used in computers and communication systems to improve the overall security of the system. Information security includes four aspects: device security, data security, content security and behavioral security. In order to further enhance the behavioral security characteristics of the image forming device, the present embodiment introduces a trusted computing function; the trusted computing monitoring module 30 mentioned in the present embodiment may include but is not limited to the following functions: program (or module) startup / operation monitoring function (such as whitelist strategy), registration function, access control function, malicious code protection function, self-protection function, terminal upgrade function, audit function, monitoring function, etc. The specific implementation method of the trusted computing monitoring module 30 can be hardware (such as a security chip), software (such as a program code with the above functions), or a combination of hardware and software (such as a security chip combined with a security code). Taking the program code implementation as an example: the trusted computing monitoring module 30 includes a driver layer supervisor and an application layer supervisor; wherein the driver layer supervisor is responsible for supervising the driver layer module of the image forming device operating system (such as the Linux system), and the application layer supervisor is responsible for supervising the application layer program of the image forming device. The trusted computing supervisor only allows the operation of drivers and programs within the whitelist; drivers and programs outside the whitelist are not allowed to operate; the trusted computing supervisor will record or report security incidents that occur on the image forming device; in this way, the trusted computing supervisor comprehensively supervises the driver layer and application layer of the image forming device, which can effectively prevent unsafe behaviors of application programs and device drivers. Since the trusted computing monitoring module itself is empirically verified and trustworthy, the trusted computing monitoring module determines the image formation confidentiality level, further increasing the security of data processing of the image forming device.
[0052] The trusted computing monitoring module 30 can obtain dynamic information of the image forming device 100 in real time. The data parsing module 20 parses the data in the file to be printed to obtain the job classification associated with the file to be printed. The trusted computing monitoring module 30 divides the file to be printed into different security levels according to the job classification associated with the file to be printed. The file to be printed can be any one of the first-level file security level, the second-level file security level, the third-level file security level, ..., and the N-level file security level, where N is an integer greater than or equal to 1. Each file security level corresponds to an image formation classification level one by one. The trusted computing monitoring module 30 matches the corresponding image formation classification level according to the security level of the file to be printed, so that the image forming device 100 performs print job control on the file to be printed. For example, when the file to be printed is of the first-level file security level, the corresponding image formation level is device security level 1, when the file to be printed is of the second-level file security level, the corresponding image formation level is device security level 2, when the file to be printed is of the third-level file security level, the corresponding image formation level is device security level 3, and so on, when the file to be printed is of the N-level file security level, the corresponding image formation level is device security level N. The trusted computing monitoring module 30 performs corresponding secure printing control on the file to be printed according to the security function corresponding to the image formation level.
[0053] When the file to be printed is of the first-level file security level, the trusted computing monitoring module 30 matches the image formation level corresponding to the first-level file security level as device security level 1, and device security level 1 is an unlimited use level. The trusted computing monitoring module 30 controls all imaging processing modules of the image forming device 100 to be available, and all security functions of the image forming device 100 are invalid. Each imaging processing module of the image forming device 100 can perform various functional processing operations on the file to be printed. When the file to be printed is of the second-level file security level, the trusted computing monitoring module 30 matches the image formation level corresponding to the second-level file security level as device security level 2, and device security level 2 is a limited use level. The trusted computing monitoring module 30 controls some imaging processing modules of the image forming device 100 to be available, such as the printing and faxing functions of the image forming device 100 are available, and the scanning function is prohibited. The image forming device 100 shields non-secure network protocol data and prohibits the use of some ports. The image forming device 100 can perform printing and faxing operations on the file to be printed. When the file to be printed is at the third-level file security level, the trusted computing monitoring module 30 matches the image formation level corresponding to the third-level file security level as device security level 3, and the device security level 3 is the stop-use level. The trusted computing monitoring module 30 controls the various imaging processing modules of the image forming device 100 to be prohibited from use. The various imaging processing modules of the image forming device 100 cannot perform any operations on the file to be printed, and even close the port, and the image forming device 100 does not interact with external devices for data.
[0054] The image forming device 100 of the embodiment of the present application receives the file to be printed sent from the print driver through the job receiving module 10, and the file to be printed is associated with a job level. The data parsing module 20 parses the data in the file to be printed to obtain the job level associated with the file to be printed. The trusted computing monitoring module 30 monitors the data parsing module 20, and matches the corresponding image formation level according to the job level associated with the file to be printed after parsing by the data parsing module 20. The image formation level is used to determine the operation authority information of each imaging processing module of the current image forming device 100. The trusted computing monitoring module can determine the image formation level according to the job level of the file to be printed, and then determine the operation authority of the image forming device 100 according to the image formation level, so that the job level of the file to be printed can be safely controlled to ensure the security of the job data in the image forming device 100. Moreover, the trusted computing monitoring module itself is verified by experience and is trustworthy, so the image formation level is determined by the trusted computing monitoring module to further increase the security of data processing in the image forming device 100.
[0055] Please refer to Figure 2 The embodiment of the present application further provides an image forming system, which includes the above-mentioned image forming device 100 and print driver 200.
[0056] Please refer to Figure 3 , an embodiment of the present application also provides an image forming method, which is applied to an image forming device and includes the following steps.
[0057] Step S01, receiving a file to be printed sent from a print driver, wherein the file to be printed is associated with a job classification.
[0058] Step S02, parsing the data in the file to be printed to obtain the job classification level associated with the file to be printed.
[0059] Step S03, matching the corresponding image formation security level according to the job security level associated with the parsed file to be printed; wherein the image formation security level is used to determine the operation authority information of each imaging processing module of the current image forming device.
[0060] The technical features of the above-described embodiments may be arbitrarily combined. To make the description concise, not all possible combinations of the technical features in the above-described embodiments are described. However, as long as there is no contradiction in the combination of these technical features, they should be considered to be within the scope of this specification.
[0061] The above-mentioned embodiments only express several implementation methods of the present invention, and the descriptions thereof are relatively specific and detailed, but they cannot be understood as limiting the scope of the invention patent. It should be pointed out that, for ordinary technicians in this field, several variations and improvements can be made without departing from the concept of the present invention, and these all belong to the protection scope of the present invention. Therefore, the protection scope of the patent of the present invention shall be subject to the attached claims.
Claims
1. An image forming device, characterized in that: include: A job receiving module receives a file to be printed from a print driver, wherein the file to be printed is associated with a job classification level; a data parsing module, parsing the data in the to-be-printed file to obtain the job level associated with the to-be-printed file; wherein the job level includes a print driver level and a file level, the print driver dynamically configures the print driver level of the print driver according to the device level of the terminal device, the device level is stored in a configuration file, the device level limits the user authority to use the terminal device, the terminal device is communicatively connected to the image forming apparatus, and the print driver is installed in the terminal device; a trusted computing monitoring module, used to monitor the data parsing module, and match the corresponding image formation level according to the job level associated with the to-be-printed file parsed by the data parsing module, wherein the image formation level includes a plurality of device security levels, each device security level corresponds to a different security function, and as the device security level increases, the security function of the image forming device increases; The image forming security level is used to determine the operation authority information of each imaging processing module of the current image forming device.
2. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein: The image formation security levels include an unlimited use level, a limited use level, and a stop use level.
3. An image forming method, applied to an image forming device, characterized in that: The method comprises: Receiving a file to be printed sent by a print driver, wherein the file to be printed is associated with a job classification; Parsing the data in the file to be printed to obtain the job level associated with the file to be printed; wherein the job level includes the print driver level and the file level, the print driver dynamically configures the print driver level of the print driver according to the device level of the terminal device, the device level is stored in a configuration file, and the device level limits the user authority to use the terminal device; The corresponding image formation level is matched according to the job level associated with the parsed file to be printed, and the image formation level includes multiple device security levels, each device security level corresponds to different security functions, and as the device security level increases, the security function of the image forming device increases; wherein, the image formation level is used to determine the operation authority information of each imaging processing module of the current image forming device.
4. The image forming method according to claim 3, wherein: The image formation security levels include an unlimited use level, a limited use level, and a stop use level.
5. An image forming system, characterized in that: The invention comprises the image forming device as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 2.
6. The image forming system according to claim 5, characterized in that: It also includes a print driver, which is used to configure its print driver security level and add the print driver security level and the file security level to the job header information of the file to be printed, so that the file to be printed is associated with the job security level.