Server-Dependent File Access Systems

Abstract

This work provides a clear, technical definition of Server-Dependent File Access (SDFA) systems and compares it to the definitions of Enterprise Resource Management (ERM) and Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems. Furthermore, a prototype implementation of a general-purpose model SDFA system written in Python 3 is provided to underline the concepts and potentially help developers to implement production-ready SDFA systems. Moreover, several different attack vectors against SDFA systems are discussed. The author concludes that SDFA systems are a valuable tool against several attack types and that the most effective attacks against SDFA systems can be performed by malicious insiders, using both internal weaknesses and external devices.