System and method for processing e-mail

• US 7,756,929 B1
• Filed: 05/18/2004
• Issued: 07/13/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 05/18/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Jhawar, Amit, Kavishwar, Shashank, Pettigrew, Nancy
• Primary Examiner(s): Elchanti; Hussein A
• Application Number:
  US10/849,090
• Time in Patent Office: 2,247 Days
• Field of Search: 709/204, 709/206, 709/207, 709223-225
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/212 using filtering or selective blocking

Abstract

The present invention provides an improved system and method for processing e-mail. The system may be implemented over a distributed network having several redundant mail servers. The system may include a message switch that receives all incoming e-mail messages and includes a policy filter, a content filter, a virus filter and a spam filter. The filters process the message in a sequential order and can be dynamically reconfigured to adapt to certain conditions. The message is stored in an area of the message switch and the filters communicate with each other by passing links to the message in order to reduce input/output. This communication method may be altered to suit the installation of the software, without altering each filter. Messages that do not pass the filters may be rejected or placed in a quarantine area. Messages that pass all of the filters are delivered to their intended recipients.

Claims

1. A system for processing e-mail messages for a plurality of clients, comprising:

a database for storing rules and settings for the plurality of clients, including policy rules, content rules and spam rules;

a message switch that includes a policy filter, a content filter, and a spam filter, where the message switch receives the e-mail messages in-transit and for each e-mail message of some plurality of the e-mail messages, before delivering the message, the message switch;

loads rules and settings which are from the database, where the rules and settings are selected based on their correspondence to a client that is either a sender or recipient of the message, and the policy filter, content filter and spam filter filter the e-mail message according to the policy rules, content rules, and spam rules, respectively; and

whereby the rules that are applied to e-mail messages depends on the corresponding clients sending or receiving the e-mail messages, wherein a message is processed by the filters in a particular filter order, and wherein the message switch is dynamically configurable such that the particular filter order changes to adapt to current conditions.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the message switch further includes a virus filter that filters messages for malicious code.

3. The system of claim 2 wherein each of the filters may be selectively enabled and disabled by a client and wherein the settings include an identification of the filters enabled by a particular client.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the policy and content filters reject messages that violate corresponding rules.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the policy and content filters quarantine messages that violate corresponding rules.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein the message switch ends processing of a message when it fails any of the filters.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein e-mail conditions are automatically monitored and the message switch automatically changes the particular filter order based on changes in the current e-mail conditions.

8. The system of claim 1 wherein the particular filter order is manually changeable by an operator.

9. The system of claim 1 wherein the policy filter compares the message to one or more accept rules, and if an accept rule is matched, the policy filter causes the message to bypass one or more filters in the message switch.

10. The system of claim 1 wherein the message switch stores a message in a first location when the message is received and creates links to various portions of the message, and wherein each of the filters receives and processes the message by use of the links.

11. The system of claim 1 wherein the system is implemented over a distributed network having a plurality of mail servers, where each includes a message switch.

12. The system of claim 1 wherein the message switch stores information regarding each message in an information file.

13. A system for processing e-mail messages in transit between various sending clients and various intended recipient clients comprising:

a policy filter that loads policy rules for a message from a database, where the policy rules loaded are selected to be loaded based on a client associated with the message such that the policy rules loaded for different messages vary according to their respective clients, the policy filter also compares the message to the policy rules, and blocks the message from being delivered if a policy rule is violated;

a content filter that loads content rules for a message from the database, where the content rules loaded are selected to be loaded based on a client associated with the message such the content rules loaded for different messages vary according to their respective clients, the content filter also compares the message to the content rules, and blocks the message if a content rule is violated;

a virus filter that detects malicious code and blocks the message if malicious code is detected; and

a spam filter that loads spam rules for a message from the database, the spam rules loaded are selected to be loaded based on the client associated with the message such the spam rules loaded for different messages vary with different clients, the spam filter also determines whether the message is spam based on the rules, and accordingly blocks the message; and

wherein the filters process the messages in an order which is dynamically reconfigurable based on current conditions, and where each filter has lower precedent than any earlier filter(s) in the order such that if an earlier filter determines from one of its rules that a message should be accepted then that message bypasses any later filter(s), or if an earlier filter determines from one of its rules that a message should be blocked then that message is blocked without being passed to any later filter(s).

14. The system of claim 13 wherein the order is automatically changed by the system.

15. The system of claim 13 wherein the order is manually changed by a system operator.

16. The system of claim 13 wherein the system further comprises:

a message delivery module that delivers a message to an intended recipient if the message has not been blocked.

17. The system of claim 16 further comprising:

a quarantine area for storing blocked messages.

18. The system of claim 16 wherein the delivery module returns blocked messages to respective senders.

19. A method for processing e-mail messages in transit between sending clients and intended recipient clients, the method comprising:

providing a first filter, a second filter, and a third filter, where each filter has a corresponding incoming message queue where messages are queued until being processed by the corresponding filter, the filters forming a pipeline where messages are passed, via the queues, form one filter to the next;

receiving e-mail messages for processing;

processing the e-mail messages through the filters in a filter-order by queuing the messages into the message queue of the filter that is first in the filter-order, and subsequent filters process the e-mail messages and pass them to the next filter'"'"'s queue, where each filter determines whether to block or pass any e-mail messages that it processes, wherein at least one of the filters selects rules from among a set of rules based on a sender or recipient of the e-mail message and applies the selected rules to the e-mail message;

automatically monitoring current e-mail conditions while some of the e-mail messages are being received; and

automatically and dynamically modifying the filter-order based on the current e-mail conditions.

20. The method of claim 19, further comprising:

selecting rules and settings for each of the filters to process an e-mail message, where the rules and settings are pre-associated with different domains of the senders or recipients and the rules for a filter to process an e-mail message are selected for that filter based on their pre-association with a domain of the message.

21. The method of claim 20 further comprising:

selectively enabling and disabling one or more of the filters, based on a domain associated with the message.

22. The method of claim 19 wherein the first filter comprises a policy filter that compares the e-mail messages to client-based policy rules, and blocks the messages if a policy rule is violated.

23. The method of claim 22 wherein the second filter comprises a content filter that compares the e-mail messages to client-based content rules, and blocks the messages if a content rule is violated.

24. The method of claim 23 wherein the third filter comprises a spam filter that compares the e-mail messages to client-based spam rules, and blocks the messages if a spam rule is violated.

25. The method of claim 24 further comprising:

providing a virus filter; and

processing the e-mail messages through the virus filter.

26. The method of claim 19 further comprising:

determining whether an e-mail message matches an accept rule; and

causing the e-mail message to bypass one or more of the filters if the e-mail message matches an accept rule.

27. The method of claim 19 further comprising:

ending processing of an e-mail message if the e-mail message fails any of the filters.

28. A computer readable medium storing information to enable a device to perform a process to operate as a message switch for filtering e-mails, the process comprising:

receiving e-mails in transit between sending and intended recipient clients;

accessing a set of stored rules that are selectively applied to the e-mails based on senders or intended recipients of the e-mails to determine whether or not to deliver the e-mails; and

executing a plurality of e-mail filters that are arranged to filter e-mails by applying varying subsets of the rules to the e-mails, where the e-mail filters filter a given e-mail in an order, one e-mail filter after another, and the order changes dynamically while some of the e-mails are being received by the message switch, the order of the e-mail filters determining relative precedence of the e-mail filters for filtering an e-mail, wherein e-mails that do not pass a filter are not delivered, and wherein when the order changes the relative precedence of the e-mail filters changes; and

selecting at least some of the rules comprising a subset of the rules that are applied by a given e-mail filter to a given e-mail, where the rules of the subset are selected based on a sender or intended recipient of the e-mail such that which of the rules in set of stored rules will be applied to the e-mail depends on the sender or intended recipient of the e-mail.

29. A computer readable medium according to claim 28, wherein the selecting at least some of the rules comprises selecting rules according to pre-association of the rules with a domain of the sender or intended recipient of the e-mail.

30. A computer readable medium according to claim 28, wherein each e-mail filter has an e-mail queue from which it receives e-mails to apply rules to the e-mails, and when an e-mail filter is done applying rules to an e-mail and the e-mail is not rejected by the e-mail filter, the e-mail enters the queue of the next filter.

31. A computer readable medium according to claim 28, wherein, for at least some of the received e-mails, rules therefor are default rules that are not selected based on the sending or intended recipient client.

32. A computer readable medium according to claim 28, wherein each e-mail filter corresponds to a different category of rules.

33. A computer readable medium according to claim 32, wherein the categories comprise anti-virus rules, spam rules, and content rules.