SYSTEM AND METHOD OF CONTROLLING ACCESS TO THE INTERNET

• US 20080208868A1
• Filed: 02/28/2007
• Published: 08/28/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 02/28/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Forcepoint LLC
• Original Assignee: Forcepoint LLC
• Inventors: Hubbard, Dan
• Granted Patent: US 8,015,174 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/10
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation

Abstract

Certain embodiments provide for systems and methods of monitoring data sent from a requested device to a requesting device and removing certain portions of the data such as malicious or otherwise objectionable content. Objectionable content may include, for example, potentially executable web content. In certain embodiments, the systems and methods remove uniform resource locator (URL) links from the intercepted data which point to web pages having malicious or otherwise objectionable content.

Claims

1. A method of monitoring data sent from a requested device to a requesting device, the method comprising:

identifying an outgoing request from the requesting device;

intercepting content sent from the requested device in response to the outgoing request;

comparing at least a portion of the content to a database;

modifying the content by removing at least some of the content based at least in part on a classification and presence of the content in the database; and

sending the modified content to the requesting device.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising sending the intercepted content to a collection module if the intercepted content is not already in the database.

3. The method of claim 2 further comprising collecting data related to the intercepted content not already in the database.

4. The method of claim 3 further comprising determining a candidate status for the one or more URL links not in the database based on the collected data.

5. The method of claim 4 further comprising:

requesting instructions from a policy module; and

receiving instructions from the policy module, wherein modifying the content is at least partially based on the received instructions.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the requested device is a search engine.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the outgoing request is a search engine query.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the content represents a webpage that includes URL links.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the URL links are identified by the search engine as being relevant to the search engine query.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the requested device is a server configured to distribute a web feed.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the outgoing request is an aggregator program request.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the content is a web feed.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the web feed comprises URL links aggregated by the aggregator program.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein URL links categorized as being potentially harmful content are removed from the content when the content is modified.

15. A system for monitoring content sent from a first device to a second device in response to a request by the second device for data from the first device, the system comprising:

a gateway server module configured to intercept the content sent from the first device to the second device and determine a category for the content based at least partially on a comparison of the intercepted content with data in a categorized URL/content database;

a policy module including instructions for modifying content based on the category of the content; and

a content filtering module configured to modify at least some of the content based at least in part on the instructions.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the gateway server module is further configured to send the intercepted content to a collection module if the intercepted content is not already in the categorized URL/content database.

17. The system of claim 16 further comprising a collection module configured to collect data related to the intercepted content if the intercepted content is not already in the URL/content database.

18. The system of claim 17 further comprising a classification module configured to receive the intercepted content from the collection module and further configured to determine a classification for the intercepted content.

19. The system of claim 15, wherein the first device is a search engine and the second device is a client workstation.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein the request is a search engine query.

21. The system of claim 20, wherein the content sent from the search engine to the client workstation comprises search results including URL links.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein the URL links are identified by the search engine as being relevant to the search engine query.

23. The method of claim 15, wherein the first device is a server configured to distribute a web feed.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein the second device includes web feed reading software.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein the content is a web feed.

26. The method of claim 25, wherein the web feed comprises URL links to content aggregated by the web feed reading software.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein URL links categorized as being objectionable content are removed from the content by the filtering module.

28. A method of controlling access to data requested from the Internet for display at a workstation, the method comprising:

sending a network request for information;

receiving a plurality of URLs in response to the network request at a gateway server module;

comparing the plurality of URLs to a database of categorized URLs;

modifying at least one of the plurality of URLs based at least in part on the comparison; and

forwarding the modified plurality of URLs to the workstation.

29. A system for monitoring data sent from a requested device to a requesting device, the system comprising:

means for identifying an outgoing request from the requesting device to the requested device;

means for intercepting content sent from the requested device in response to the outgoing request;

means for comparing at least a portion of the content to data in a database;

means for modifying the content by removing at least some of the content based at least in part on a classification and presence of the content in the database; and

means for sending the modified content to the requesting device.