Visualization of trust in an address bar

• US 9,444,630 B2
• Filed: 08/13/2013
• Issued: 09/13/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 03/23/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Zhigu Holdings Limited
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Sauve, Aaron J., Van Dok, Cornelis K., Silbey, Marc A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Zand, Kambiz
• Assistant Examiner(s): Tran, Tongoc
• Application Number:
  US13/965,822
• Publication Number:
  US 20130332740A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,127 Days
• Field of Search: 713/156, 713/170, 713/176, 713/175, 713/168, 713/180, 726/2, 726/10, 726 17- 19
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/56 Financial cryptography, e.g. electronic payment or e-cash
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/60 Digital content management, e.g. content distribution
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0823 using certificates cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication involving certificates H04L9/3263
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/126 the source of the received data
• 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

Abstract

Described are a system and method for presenting security information about a current site or communications session. Briefly stated, a browsing software is configured to receive a certificate during a negotiation of a secure session between a local device and a remote device. The certificate includes security information about a site maintained at the remote device. The security information is displayed to a user of the browsing software in a meaningful fashion to allow the user to make a trust determination about the site. Displaying the security information may include presenting a certificate summary that includes the most relevant information about the certificate, such as the name of the owner of the site and the name of the certificating authority of the certificate.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

one or more processors;

one or more computer-readable storage media storing instructions that, when executed via the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to implement browsing software configured to;

display a visual indication of trust associated with a webpage being displayed by the browsing software, the visual indication of trust being displayed via an address bar area provided by the browsing software, the address bar area including a protocol portion to present a uniform resource locator (URL) corresponding to the webpage and a security portion to present the visual indication of trust; and

responsive to a selection of the security portion, display additional security information corresponding to the webpage via a user interface element exposed adjacent to the address bar area.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the browsing software is further configured to:

receive certificate information corresponding to the webpage; and

determine to provide the indication of trust based on the certificate information.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the visual indication of trust comprises an icon.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the visual indication of trust comprises a color.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the visual indication of trust comprises a name of an entity associated with the webpage.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the visual representation of trust comprises coloring at least a portion of the address bar to represent a level of trust determined for the webpage.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the user interface element is a drop-down box adjacent to the address bar area.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the additional security information comprises a name of an entity that issued a certificate associated with the webpage.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the additional security information comprises information regarding expiration of a certificate associated with the webpage.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the address bar area comprises a first box with the protocol portion adjacent to a second box with the security portion.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the visual indication of trust provides an indication regarding validity of a certificate corresponding with the webpage.

12. One or more computer-readable storage media storing computer-useable instructions that, when used by one or more computing devices, cause the one or more computing devices to perform operations comprising:

displaying an address bar area of an application, the address bar area including an address portion to present information corresponding to a location of content being displayed by the application and a security portion to present security information associated with the content being displayed by the application; and

responsive to a selection of the security portion, displaying the additional security information via a user interface element exposed adjacent to the address bar area.

13. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 12, wherein the security information comprises at least one selected from the following:

an icon, a color, and a name of an entity associated with the content.

14. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 12, wherein the security information is derived from a certificate associated with the content, and the security information provides information regarding validity of the certificate.

15. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 12, wherein the operations further comprise:

identifying a user selection of the security portion; and

responsive to the user selection, exposing the user interface element adjacent to the address bar area having the displaying additional security information corresponding to the content.

16. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 15, wherein the additional security information is displayed in an area adjacent to the address bar area.

17. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 15, wherein the additional security information comprises at least one selected from the following:

a name of an entity that issued a certificate associated with the content, and information regarding expiration of a certificate associated with the content.

18. One or more computer-readable storage media storing computer-useable instructions that, when used by one or more computing devices, cause the one or more computing devices to perform operations comprising:

responsive to navigating to a webpage, receiving security information corresponding with the webpage;

displaying an address bar area of a browser;

displaying, within the address bar area, an address portion presenting information corresponding to a location of the webpage and a security portion providing a visual indication of trust based on the security information; and

responsive to a selection of the security portion, exposing a user interface element exposed adjacent to the address bar that presents the additional security information.

19. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 18, wherein security information is from a certificate associated with the webpage, and the visual indication of trust provides information regarding validity of the certificate.

20. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 19, wherein the visual indication of trust comprises coloring at least a portion of the address bar area to represent a level of trust determined for the webpage.