Virus protection in an internet environment

• US 20030177397A1
• Filed: 02/28/2003
• Published: 09/18/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 08/31/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Withsecure Corporation
• Original Assignee: F-Secure Oyj
• Inventors: Samman, Ben
• Granted Patent: US 8,286,245 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 713/201
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/564 by virus signature recognition

Abstract

A method of scanning data for viruses in a computer device, the device having a browser for rendering the data for use. The method comprises storing the data in a buffer memory accessible to said browser and creating an instance of a browser plugin, said plugin providing a virus scanning function or providing a route to a virus scanning function. The data is scanned for viruses using the instance of the plugin and, if no viruses are detected in the data, it is returned to the browser for rendering. If a virus is detected in the data, rendering of the data is inhibited.

Claims

1. A method of scanning data for viruses in a computer device, the device having a browser for rendering the data for use, the method comprising:

storing the data in a buffer memory accessible to said browser;

creating an instance of a browser plugin, said plugin providing a virus scanning function or providing a route to a vii us scanning function;

scanning the data for viruses using the instance of the plugin;

if no viruses are detected in the data, returning the data to the browser for rendering; and

if a virus is detected in the data, inhibiting rendering of the data.

2. A method according to claim 1, wherein the computer device is a mobile wireless platform, and said browser is a WAP browser.

3. A method according to claim 2, wherein the data scanned is an executable file or part thereof, or data associated with an executable file.

4. A method according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the plugin comprise virus scanning functionality.

5. A method according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the instance of the plugin created by the browser causes a separate virus scanning application to be opened, and the plugin makes the data accessible to the scanning application.

6. A mobile wireless device comprising a memory having a WAP browser application stored therein and a virus scanning browser plugin, wherein in use the WAP browser creates an instance of the virus scanning plugin for scanning WAP data prior to rendering the data.

7. A mobile wireless device comprising a memory having a WAP browser application stored therein, a browser plugin, and a virus scanning application, wherein in use the WAP browser creates an instance of the plugin, which instance makes WAP data available to the virus scanning application for virus scanning.

8. A computer memory encoded with executable instructions representing an Internet browser plugin, the executable instructions being arranged to cause a mobile wireless platform to scan WAP and or HTML data for viruses prior to rendering of the data for display on a display of the device.

9. A method of scanning WAP data for viruses, the method comprising receiving WAP related data at a WAP gateway from an origin, the data being in an encrypted form, decrypting the data at the WAP gateway and scanning the data for viruses, and in the event that no viruses are found in the data, re-encrypting the data and sending the data to a destination.

10. A method according to claim 9, wherein data is sent via the WAP gateway between a mobile wireless platform and an origin server, with data sent between the mobile wireless platform and the WAP gateway being encrypted according to the Wireless Transport Layer Security (WTLS) protocols and data sent between the WAP gateway and the origin server being encrypted using IPsec protocols.