Business to business secure mail

• US 8,447,976 B2
• Filed: 06/01/2009
• Issued: 05/21/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 06/01/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Jain, Chandresh K., Mehta, Mayank, Byrum, Frank D., Banti, Edward, Koman, Ayse Yesim, Nelte, Michael A., Barnes, Christopher, Zhang, Hao, Boctor, Victor, Patel, Tejas D., Zhong, Yuhui, Kostal, Gregory, Yarmolenko, Vladimir, Kamat, Pankaj M., Fulay, Amit K., Karamfilov, Krassimir E., Knibb, James R.
• Primary Examiner(s): Barron, Jr., Gilberto
• Assistant Examiner(s): ALMEIDA, DEVIN E
• Application Number:
  US12/476,049
• Publication Number:
  US 20100306535A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,450 Days
• Field of Search: 726/4, 713/168
• US Class Current: 713/168
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/606 by securing the transmission between two devices or processes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/125 Parallelization or pipelining, e.g. for accelerating processing of cryptographic operations
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0823 using certificates cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication involving certificates H04L9/3263
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3213 using tickets or tokens, e.g. Kerberos network architectures or network communication protocols for entities authentication using tickets in a packet data network H04L63/0807
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3263 involving certificates, e.g. public key certificate [PKC] or attribute certificate [AC]; Public key infrastructure [PKI] arrangements network architectures or network communication protocols for supporting authentication of entities using certificates in a packet data network H04L63/0823
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3271 using challenge-response

Abstract

Business to business secure mail may be provided. Consistent with embodiments of the invention, a protected message may be received. The recipient may request a token from a trust broker, submit the token to an authorization server associated with the sender, receive a user license from the authorization server; and decrypt the protected message using the user license. The protected message may restrict actions that may be taken by the recipient, such as forwarding to other users.

Claims

1. A method for providing secure mail, the method comprising:

receiving, at a recipient device, a protected message from a sender device associated with a first organization, wherein the recipient device is associated with a second organization, and wherein the first and second organizations are different;

requesting a receiving user token from a trust broker, wherein requesting the receiving user token comprises submitting a list of two or more email aliases associated with the receiving user token, wherein the two or more email aliases are federated with the trust broker;

submitting the receiving user token to an authorization server associated with the sender device;

receiving a user license issued by the authorization server; and

decrypting the protected message using the user license.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

prior to requesting the receiving user token from the trust broker, determining whether the message protection is associated with another organization; and

in response to determining that the message protection is associated with another organization, receiving a local user license to decrypt the protected message from an authorization server associated with the another organization.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising federating the first and the second organizations with the trust broker prior to requesting the receiving user token.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the protected message comprises at least one accepted trust broker.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the protected message comprises an authorization allowing decryption of the message by a pipeline agent.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising notifying the sender device when the user license is issued by the authorization server associated with the sender device.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the protected message comprises a network location for the authorization server associated with the sender device.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the user license prohibits the protected message from being sent to at least one other recipient.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a list of authorized recipients associated with the protected message;

determining whether the list of authorized recipients includes a user submitting the receiving user token to the authorization server associated with the sender device; and

in response to determining that the list of authorized recipients does not include the user submitting the receiving user token to the authorization server associated with the sender device, refusing to issue the user license.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a list of authorized recipients associated with the protected message;

determining whether the list of authorized recipients includes a receiving user requesting the receiving user token from the trust broker; and

in response to determining that the list of authorized recipients does not include the receiving user requesting the receiving user token from the trust broker, refusing to issue the receiving user token.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving no response from the authorization server associated with the sender device;

caching the authorization server in a list of unavailable authorization servers;

receiving a second protected message from a sending organization associated with the unavailable authorization server; and

discarding the second protected message.

12. A computer readable storage medium storing a set of instructions that when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform a method, the method comprising:

receiving, by a first device associated with a first user who is associated with a receiving organization, a protected message from a second device associated with a second user who is associated with a sending organization, wherein the protected message comprises a list of authorized recipients, wherein the receiving organization is different from the sending organization;

determining whether the first user is included in the list of authorized recipients;

in response to determining that the first user is included in the list of authorized recipients, requesting a user token from a trust broker, wherein requesting the user token from the trust broker comprises submitting a list of two or more email aliases, wherein the two or more email aliases are federated with the trust broker;

submitting the user token to an authorization server associated with the sending organization;

receiving a user license from the authorization server associated with the sending organization; and

using the received user license to decrypt the protected message for the first user.

13. The computer readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein the receiving organization and the sending organization have federated with the trust broker.

14. The computer readable storage medium of claim 12, further comprising decrypting the message for access by a pipeline agent.

15. The computer readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein the protected message comprises a network location for the authorization server associated with the sending organization.

16. The computer readable storage medium of claim 12, further comprising:

receiving no response from the authorization server associated with the sending organization; and

creating a negative cache entry identifying the authorization server associated with the sending organization as unavailable.

17. The computer readable storage medium of claim 16, further comprising:

receiving a second protected message from a third device associated with a third user who is associated with the sending organization;

identifying the authorization server associated with the sending organization as unavailable according to the negative cache entry; and

discarding the second protected message.

18. The computer readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein two or more email aliases are associated with the first user.

19. The computer readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein requesting the user token further comprises requesting a user token associated with at least one of the two or more email aliases from the trust broker.

20. A system for providing secure mail between organizations, the system comprising:

a memory storage; and

a processing unit coupled to the memory storage, wherein the processing unit is operative

to;

receive, by a first device associated with a first user who is associated with a receiving organization, a protected message from a second device associated with a second user who is associated with a sending organization, wherein the protected message comprises a list of authorized recipients, wherein the receiving organization and the sending organization are different;

determine whether the receiving organization comprises a rights certificate associated with the sending organization;

in response to determining that the receiving organization does not comprise a rights certificate associated with the sending organization;

request an organization token from a trust broker,

send the organization token to an authorization server associated with the sending organization,

receive the rights certificate associated with the sending organization, and cache the rights certificate associated with the sending organization;

determine whether the first user is included in the list of authorized recipients;

in response to determining that the first user is included in the list of authorized recipients, request a user token from a trust broker, wherein the request includes submitting a list of two or more email aliases associated with the user token, wherein the two or more email aliases are federated with the trust broker;

send the user token to the authorization server associated with the sending organization;

receive a user license from the authorization server associated with the sending organization;

decrypt the protected message for the first user using the rights certificate and the user license; and

enforce at least one restriction associated with the protected message.