Sensitive Information Handling on a Collaboration System

• US 20120159649A1
• Filed: 02/27/2012
• Published: 06/21/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 11/15/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Target Brands Inc. (Target Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Target Brands Inc. (Target Corporation)
• Inventors: Roger, Edwin Sidney, Cundiff, Daniel Mark, Olson, Ari Edwin
• Granted Patent: US 8,656,288 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 726/28
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1822 Conducting the conference, e.g. admission, detection, selection or grouping of participants, correlating users to one or more conference sessions, prioritising transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1831 Tracking arrangements for later retrieval, e.g. recording contents, participants activities or behavior, network status
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/10 for controlling access to devices or network resources

Abstract

On a document collaboration system, such as a wiki, the content of postings to the collaboration system is monitored for sensitive information. Under some embodiments, when instances of such sensitive information are detected, an e-mail is sent to the user that posted the collaboration page posting. In other embodiments, a message is then sent to a person associated with the entity that indicates that the information placed on the collaboration page is confidential information or is related to an asset of the entity. In further embodiments, individual people are assigned responsibility for monitoring the use of certain instances of sensitive information on the collaboration system. Each user is only notified when the instances they are responsible for appear on a collaboration page. In other embodiments, if a collaboration page includes an instance of sensitive information, access to the collaboration page is changed such that fewer people can access the collaboration page.

Claims

1. A method of administering a collaboration application using computers connected via a network, the method comprising:

receiving an instruction via one of the computers to save a collaboration page posting from a revision poster;

determining by executing a computer operation that the posting contains a word or phrase from a list of words or phrases relating to sensitive information, the sensitive information including offensive words or phrases, words or phrases that are considered confidential, words or phrases that are considered proprietary, or words or phrases that are associated with an asset; and

sending an e-mail to the revision poster via the network notifying them that the posting contains the word.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein sending an e-mail comprises notifying the revision poster that the word relates to sensitive information of an entity.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein sending an e-mail comprises suggesting to the revision poster that the posting should be removed from the collaboration page.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising setting an access parameter to reduce access to the collaboration page based on the word appearing in the posting.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein words may be added to the list of words by any user that can modify the collaboration page.

6. A computer-readable medium having encoded thereon computer-executable instructions that when executed by a computer perform steps comprising:

searching a wiki page for a word or phrase from a list of words or phrases relating to sensitive information, the sensitive information including offensive words or phrases, words or phrases that are considered confidential, words or phrases that are considered proprietary, or words or phrases that are associated with an asset; and

sending a message to a person associated with the entity that the word or phrase placed on the wiki page is sensitive information.

7. The computer-readable medium of claim 6 wherein sending a message comprises sending a message to an administrator who is responsible for all wiki pages associated with a wiki application.

8. The computer-readable medium of claim 6 wherein sending a message comprises sending a message to a specialist who is responsible for limiting disclosure of the sensitive information.

9. The computer-readable medium of claim 6 wherein sending a message comprises sending a message to a user who posted the sensitive information to the wiki page.

10. The computer-readable medium of claim 6 wherein searching a wiki page is triggered when content for the wiki page is saved in a wiki application.

11. The computer-readable medium of claim 6 further comprising reducing access to the wiki page after the sensitive information is found on the wiki page.

12. The computer-readable medium of claim 11 wherein reducing access to the wiki page comprises changing a security access level for the wiki page.

13. A method of administering a knowledge management system using computers connected via a network, the method comprising:

assigning a first user responsibility for monitoring use of a first instance of sensitive information on knowledge management documents on a knowledge management system, the sensitive information including offensive words or phrases, words or phrases that are considered confidential, words or phrases that are considered proprietary, or words or phrases that are associated with an asset;

assigning a second user responsibility for monitoring use of a second instance of sensitive information on the knowledge management documents on the knowledge management system; and

the knowledge management system notifying the first user but not the second user via the network if the first instance of sensitive information appears on a knowledge management document on the knowledge management document system.

14. The method of claim 13 further comprising notifying an administrator who is responsible for all knowledge management documents on the knowledge management system if the first instance of sensitive information appears on a knowledge management document on the knowledge management system and notifying the administrator if the second instance of sensitive information appears on a knowledge management document on the knowledge management system.

15. The method of claim 14 further comprising notifying an author of a knowledge management document if the first instance of sensitive information appears in content produced by the author.

16. The method of claim 13 further comprising adjusting access to a knowledge management document if the first instance of sensitive information appears in the knowledge management document.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein adjusting access to a knowledge management document comprises changing a security level required to access the knowledge management document.

18. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions encoded thereon that when executed on a computer perform steps comprising:

receiving an indication that a collaboration page has been changed;

determining that the collaboration page contains a word or phrase in a list of sensitive words or phrases, the sensitive words or phrases including offensive words or phrases, words or phrases that are considered confidential, words or phrases that are considered proprietary, or words or phrases that are associated with an asset; and

changing access to the collaboration page such that fewer people can access the collaboration page after it has been changed than before it was changed based on the word or phrase being contained in the collaboration page, at least one person being able to access the collaboration page after access to the collaboration page is changed.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 18 further comprising notifying a person associated with the word or phrase that the collaboration page contains the word or phrase.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 19 further comprising sending an e-mail message to a person who added the word or phrase to the collaboration page to notify the person that the collaboration page contains a sensitive word or phrase.