BROWSER PREVIEW

• US 20110022559A1
• Filed: 07/24/2009
• Published: 01/27/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 07/24/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Bank of America Corp.
• Original Assignee: Bank of America Corp.
• Inventors: Andersen, David M., Richards, Phillip L., Bunton, Brandee Lynn
• Granted Patent: US 8,930,805 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 706/47
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/52 during program execution, e.g. stack integrity ; Preventing unwanted data erasure; Buffer overflow
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/563 by source code analysis
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/145 the attack involving the propagation of malware through the network, e.g. viruses, trojans or worms
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/1483 service impersonation, e.g. phishing, pharming or web spoofing detection of rogue wireless access points H04W12/12

Abstract

In general, embodiments of the invention relate to systems, methods, and computer program products for previewing, in a safe environment, a given web page that is or may be conducting dangerous or fraudulent activity, including malware distribution and phishing activity. More particularly, embodiments of the invention relate to previewing a given web page in a safe environment by obtaining and breaking down the source code behind the given web page and constructing a preview of the web page without any potentially harmful images, scripts, executables, and/or the like.

Claims

1. An apparatus comprising:

a network interface configured to communicate with a web server on a network and receive from the web server computer-readable web page code defining a web page;

a memory device comprising one or more rules stored therein;

a processor communicably coupled to the network interface and the memory, and configured to;

receive a web page identifier identifying the web page;

use the web page identifier and the network interface to contact the web server and receive the computer-readable web page code from the web server; and

generate a modified view of the web page based at least partially on the rules stored in the memory device and the computer-readable web page code received from the web server.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the network interface is configured to communicate with the web server via an anonymous web proxy server.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to generate the modified view of the web page by creating computer-readable web page code that is based on, but different than, the computer-readable web page code received from the web server.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to provide the modified view of the web page to a display device for display of the modified view to a user.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the modified view of the web page does not include images, scripts, and executables that are in the web page.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the rules identify particular portions of the computer-readable web page code and define different computer-readable web page code to replace at least some of the identified portions of the computer-readable web page code.

7. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the rules identify a portion of the computer-readable web page code related to the display of an image and provide different computer-readable web page code to display an image identifier in the modified view of the web page instead of the image itself.

8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the rules replace portions of the computer-readable web page code that are related to formatting with different computer-readable web page code that standardizes the formatting.

9. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the modified view of the web page comprises web page metadata.

10. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the modified view of the web page comprises a list of links included in the web page.

11. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the modified view of the web page comprises a textual view of the computer-readable web page code received from the web server.

12. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the computer-readable web page code comprises HyperText Markup Language (HTML).

13. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the rules identify HTML tags that indicate material that is to be displayed in the modified view.

14. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the rules identify HTML tags that indicate material that is not to be displayed in the modified view.

15. A system comprising:

a first computer configured to select a web page identifier;

an application server configured to receive the web page identifier from the first computer; and

a proxy server configured to receive the web page identifier from the application server,

wherein the proxy server is further configured to use the web page identifier to request a web page from a web page server,

wherein the proxy server is configured to receive first source code from the web page server,

wherein the application server is configured to receive the first source code from the proxy server and, based on the first source code, construct second source code for displaying a modified view of the web page, and

wherein the first computer is configured to receive the second source code and use it to display the modified view of the web page.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the first computer is configured to receive the first source code and display the first source code along with the modified view of the web page.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the modified view of the web page does not include scripts, images, or executables.

18. The system of claim 15, wherein the proxy server comprises an anonymous web proxy server.

19. A method comprising:

receiving, electronically through a communication interface, a web page identifier identifying a web page;

using the web page identifier and the communication interface to contact a web server and receive computer-readable web page code from the web server; and

using a processor to generate a modified view of the web page based at least partially on rules stored in a memory device and the computer-readable web page code received from the web server, wherein the processor is configured to generate modified views of web pages based at least partially on rules stored in a memory device and computer-readable web page code received from web servers.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein using the web page identifier and the communication interface to contact a web server comprises communicating with the web server via an anonymous web proxy server.

21. The method of claim 19, wherein using a processor to generate a modified view of the web page comprises using the processor to create computer-readable web page code that is based on, but different than, the computer-readable web page code received from the web server.

22. The method of claim 19, further comprising displaying the modified view of the web page without images, scripts, and executables that are in the web page.

23. The method of claim 19, further comprising the processor using the rules to identify particular portions of the computer-readable web page code and define different computer-readable web page code to replace at least some of the identified portions of the computer-readable web page code.

24. The method of claim 19, further comprising providing web page metadata along with the modified view of the web page.

25. The method of claim 19, further comprising providing a list of links included in the web page along with the modified view of the web page.

26. The method of claim 19, using the processor to identify HTML tags that indicate material that is to be displayed in the modified view.

27. The method of claim 19, using the processor to identify HTML tags that indicate material that is not to be displayed in the modified view.