SIGNATURE GENERATION USING MESSAGE SUMMARIES

• US 20160205050A1
• Filed: 03/18/2016
• Published: 07/14/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 02/20/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SonicWALL US Holdings, Inc. (SonicWall Holdings Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Dell Software, Inc. (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Inventors: Oliver, Jonathan J., Koblas, David A., Wilson, Brian K.
• Granted Patent: US 10,027,611 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/345 Summarisation for human users
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/063 Content adaptation, e.g. replacement of unsuitable content
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/212 using filtering or selective blocking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/234 for tracking messages

Abstract

Systems and methods for processing a message are provided. A message may be processed to generate a message summary by removing or replacing certain words, phrases, sentences, punctuation, and the like. Message signatures based upon the message summary may be generated and stored in a signature database, which may be used to identify and/or classify spam messages. Subsequently received messages may be classified by signature and processed based on classification.

Claims

1. A method for processing electronic messages (e-mails) is provided, the method comprising:

receiving an electronic message, wherein the received electronic message includes a sender'"'"'s address;

comparing the sender'"'"'s address associated with the electronic message to sender addresses found on a blacklist that contains a plurality of sender addresses and signatures that previously sent spam; and

executing instructions stored in memory, wherein the instructions are executed by a processor to;

receive user input that classifies the received electronic message when the sender'"'"'s address for the received electronic message is not found within the blacklist, and

update the blacklist based on the received user input, wherein the updating includes;

summarizing content of the received electronic message,

generating one or more signatures for the received electronic message based on the summarized content, and

associating the generated signatures with the sender'"'"'s address, and

processing the received electronic message based on the blacklist.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein processing the received message includes blocking the received electronic message when the sender'"'"'s address is found on the blacklist.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the updating further includes spell checking the content of the received electronic message.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the spell checking of the content of the received electronic message includes correcting misspelled words and discarding misspelled words that are not correctible.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the discarding misspelled words that are not correctible includes exceptions that include URLs and email addresses.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein summarizing content of the received electronic message includes removing extraneous information from received electronic message.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein extraneous information that is removed includes a list of stop words, words found in commonly used sentences or phrases by known spammers, punctuations, tabs, and blank lines.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein summarizing content of the received electronic message includes replacing one or more words found in the received electronic message with canonical equivalents.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the replacing of one or more words includes replacing a combination of two or more words (e.g., phrases) with canonical equivalents.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein summarizing content of the received electronic message includes ranking the canonical equivalents based on probability of a particular canonical equivalent being used is associated with spam.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the signature includes using a transform function on the summarized content.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the signature requires that the summarized content of the received electronic message be a pre-determined size.