Information Flow Control
Information Flow Control (IFC) is a security mechanism that tracks and regulates how data moves through a system, ensuring that sensitive information does not leak to unauthorized parties. It enforces policies based on data confidentiality and integrity, often using labels or tags to classify data and control its propagation. This concept is fundamental in secure system design, particularly for applications handling classified, personal, or proprietary data.
Developers should learn IFC when building systems that require high security, such as financial software, healthcare applications, or government systems, to prevent data breaches and ensure compliance with regulations like GDPR or HIPAA. It is especially useful in multi-level security environments, cloud computing, and distributed systems where data flows across different trust boundaries, helping to enforce least-privilege access and mitigate insider threats.