System and method of preventing the transmission of known and unknown electronic content to and from servers or workstations connected to a common network

• US 20040143764A1
• Filed: 01/13/2004
• Published: 07/22/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 01/13/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sureshwara Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Sureshwara Incorporated
• Inventors: Kaleedhass, Kartik
• Granted Patent: US 8,799,644 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 713/201
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0245 Filtering by information in the payload

Abstract

A system for preventing the transmission of known and unknown electronic contents to and from servers or workstations connected to a common network. The system includes devices for means for interpreting the contents of a messaging protocol or application network protocol, for checking compliance of the electronic contents with the messaging protocol specification or application network protocol specification and for filtering the electronic content based on its functions.

Claims

1. A system for preventing the transmission of known and unknown electronic contents to and from servers or workstations connected to a common network comprising of:

means for interpreting contents of a messaging protocol or application network protocol;

means for checking compliance of the electronic contents with the messaging protocol specification or application network protocol specification; and

means for filtering the electronic content based on its functions.

2. A system as claimed in claim 1 further comprising of means for preventing attacks on the servers and/or workstations without knowing details of the attack.

3. A system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the means for interpreting contents of the messaging protocol or application network protocol comprises of one or more servers, one or more workstations or combination thereof and intermediate verifier with protocol specification maintain therein.

4. A system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the means for interpreting contents of a messaging protocol or application network protocol comprises of one or more workstations and intermediate verifier with protocol specification maintain therein.

5. A system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the means for interpreting contents of a messaging protocol or application network protocol comprises of one or more servers and intermediate verifier with protocol specification maintain therein.

6. A system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the means for checking compliance of the electronic contents with the messaging protocol specification or application network protocol specification comprises of one or more servers, one or more workstations or combination thereof and an intermediate verifier with protocol specification maintained herein and wherein the one or more servers, the one or more workstations and the combination thereof and the intermediate verifier is/are the same as the one or more servers the one or more workstations or combination thereof and the intermediate verifier stated in claim 3 or are separately independent.

7. A system as claimed in claim 6 wherein the intermediate verifier checks compliance of the electronic contents between one or more servers or one or more workstations or combination thereof.

8. A system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the means for the filtering the electronic content based on its function comprises of a network of one or more servers and one or more workstations or combination thereof and at least one intermediate verifier will functioning as a filter.

9. A system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the workstation is selected from one or more of the following:

Personal digital assistant (PDA);

Personal computers;

Mobile cellular telephone;

or

any apparatus with computing capability connected to a network.

10. A system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the known and un-known electronic content is identified by one or more of the following:

Pattern of binary codes within the electronic contents;

Name of the electronic content such as name of file;

Orientation and format of the electronic content such as plain text file, image file or data files;

Function of the electronic content such as but not limited to erasure files without users knowledge or instruction, automatic sharing of files and corruption of files.

11. A system as claimed in claims 1 and claim 10 wherein the patterns, names and orientation and format are used for filtering known content and the functions are used for filtering the unknown content.

12. A system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the unknown content once identified to have a damaging function its name, pattern and orientation and format will be identified and stored in the database for further or future filtering.

13. A system as claimed in claim 12 wherein the identification and storage is done automatically.

22. Computer readable medium as claimed in claim 9 wherein the medium includes one or more CD roms, DVD, magnetic tapes, backup media or any media which is capable of storing computer program instructions.

14. A method of preventing the transmission of known or unknown electronic content to and from servers or workstations or combination thereof connected to a common network comprising of:

sending response information from one or more servers or one or more workstations or combination thereof to a designated recipient;

verifying the response information by intermediate verifier before the information reaches designated recipient;

relaying the verified information to the designated recipient and wherein the method of verifying includes the filtering of the known or un known electronic content is based on its functions, patterns, names and orientation and formats of the electronic contents.

16. A method as claimed in claims 14 and 15 wherein the method of verifying the information includes one or more of the following steps:

checking the presence of known patterns in the electronic contents;

checking the presence of known name of electronic contents such as name of file;

checking orientation and format of the electronic contents such as plain text file, image file or data file;

checking function of the electronic content such as but not limited to erasure files without users knowledge or instructions, automatic sharing of files and corruption of files.

15. A method of preventing the transmission of known or unknown electronic contents to and from servers or workstations or combination thereof connected to a common network comprising of:

verifying of requested information by an intermediate verifier before information reaches a designated server or workstation or combination thereof;

depatching the verified information to a designated recipient; and

receiving request information by one or more servers or one or more workstations or combination thereof from one or more servers or one or more workstations.

17. A method of preventing the transmission of known or unknown electronic contents to and from servers or workstations or combination thereof connected to a common network comprising of:

sending response information from one or more server or one or more workstation or combination thereof to a designated recipient;

verifying the response information by an intermediate verifier before information reaches the designated recipient;

relaying the verified information to the designated recipient and wherein the method of verifying includes the interpretation of the messaging network protocol or application network protocol and checking its compliance with the application/network protocol specification available at IETF by the intermediate verifier programmed with such capabilities.

18. A method of preventing the transmission of known or unknown electronic content to and from servers of workstations or combination thereof connected to a common network comprising of:

verifying requested information by an intermediate verifier before information reaches the designated server or workstation or combination thereof;

despatching of verified information to a designated recipient; and

receiving requested information by one or more servers or one or more workstations or combination thereof from one or more servers or one or more workstations wherein the method of verifying includes the includes the interpretation of the messaging network protocol or application network protocol and checking its compliance with the application/network protocol specification available at IETF by the intermediate verifier programmed with such capabilities.

19. A computer readable medium for verification for known or unknown electronic content transmitted between one or more servers or one or more workstations or combination thereof comprising of program instructions for verifying the electronic content by:

checking the presence of known patterns in the electronic contents;

checking the presence of known name of electronic contents such as name of file;

checking orientation and format of the electronic contents such as plain text file, image file or data file;

checking function of the electronic content such as but not limited to erasure files without users knowledge or instructions, automatic sharing of files and corruption of files and/or program instructions for checking it compliance with the application/network protocol specification available at the IETF programmed with such capabilities.

20. The program instructions as claimed in claim 19 distributable through a common network such as the internet local area network or wide area network.

21. The program instructions as claimed in claim 19 which is installed and/or executable in any computing device.

23. Computer readable medium as claimed in claim 19 wherein the media is connected to one or more servers, one or more workstations or combination thereof.