Method and system for obscuring and securing financial data in an online banking application

• US 20080130940A1
• Filed: 11/30/2006
• Published: 06/05/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 11/30/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intuit, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Intuit, Inc.
• Inventors: Whitelaw, James E.
• Granted Patent: US 8,041,127 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/100
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6209 to a single file or object, e.g. in a secure envelope, encrypted and accessed using a key, or with access control rules appended to the object itself

Abstract

One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that obscures critical information communicated over a network. During operation, the system receives a set of data and produces a file which represents a character in the data with at least one image, thereby avoiding representing the data in plain text and reducing the risk of scraping. The system then communicates the file to a client, thereby allowing the client to present the data using the embedded images.

Claims

1. A method for obscuring critical information communicated over a network, the method comprising:

receiving a set of data;

producing a file which represents a character in the data with at least one image, thereby avoiding representing the data in plain text and reducing the risk of scraping; and

communicating the file to a client, thereby allowing the client to present the data using the embedded images.

2. The method of claim 1,

wherein producing the file involves replacing the character with an image;

and

wherein the character can be an alphabetic character, a numeric character, or a symbol.

3. The method of claim 1,

wherein producing the file involves dividing the character into a number of portions and replacing each portion with an image;

and

wherein the character can be an alphabetic character, a numeric character, or a symbol.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

dynamically generating the images used for each session, thereby preventing an unauthorized scraper from acquiring a mapping between one or more images and a character through optical character recognition (OCR).

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

dynamically generating universal resource identifiers (URI'"'"'s) used to reference the images, thereby preventing an unauthorized scraper from acquiring a mapping between an image and the URI used to reference the image

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

dynamically generating the images for each character represented by image, thereby preventing an unauthorized scraper from acquiring a mapping between one or more images and a character through OCR.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

steganographically concealing the file within one or more cover images, thereby further reducing the risk of scraping; and

wherein communicating the file to the client involves communicating the cover images to the client, thereby allowing the client to extract the concealed file.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising encrypting the file prior to steganographically concealing the file.

9. A method for securing critical information communicated over a network, the method comprising:

receiving one or more steganographically encoded cover images;

extracting concealed data from the cover images based on a set of pre-determined rules; and

presenting the data to a user.

10. The method of claim 9,

wherein extracting the concealed data from the cover images involves extracting a file which represents a character in the concealed data with at least one image;

and

wherein presenting the data to the user involves displaying the images which represent the characters in an arrangement that accurately presents the data.

11. The method of claim 9, further comprising decrypting the extracted file prior to presenting the data.

12. A computer system for obscuring critical information communicated over a network, the computer system comprising:

a processor;

a memory;

a receiving mechanism configured to receive a set of data;

a data obscuring mechanism configured to produce a file which represents a character in the data with at least one image, thereby avoiding representing the data in plain text and reducing the risk of scraping; and

a communication mechanism configured to communicate the file to a client, thereby allowing the client to present the data using the embedded images.

13. The computer system of claim 12,

wherein while producing the file, the data obscuring mechanism is configured to replace the character with an image;

and

wherein the character can be an alphabetic character, a numeric character, or a symbol.

14. The computer system of claim 12,

wherein while producing the file, the data obscuring mechanism is configured to divide the character into a number of portions and replacing each portion with an image;

and

wherein the character can be an alphabetic character, a numeric character, or a symbol.

15. The computer system of claim 12, further comprising:

an image generation mechanism configured to dynamically generate the images used for each session, thereby preventing an unauthorized scraper from acquiring a mapping between one or more images and a character through OCR.

16. The computer system of claim 12, further comprising:

a URI generation mechanism configured to dynamically generate the URI'"'"'s used to reference the images, thereby preventing an unauthorized scraper from acquiring a mapping between an image and the URI used to reference the image.

17. The computer system of claim 12, further comprising:

an image generation mechanism configured to dynamically generate the images for each character represented by image, thereby preventing an unauthorized scraper from acquiring a mapping between one or more images and a character through OCR.

18. The computer system of claim 12, further comprising:

an encryption mechanism configured to steganographically conceal the file within one or more cover images, thereby further reducing the risk of scraping; and

wherein while communicating the file to the client involves communicating the cover images to the client, thereby allowing the client to extract the concealed file.

19. The computer system of claim 18, wherein the encryption mechanism is configured to encrypt the file prior to steganographically concealing the file.

20. A computer system for securing critical information communicated over a network, the computer system comprising:

a processor;

a memory;

a receiving mechanism configured to receive one or more steganographically encoded cover images;

a decryption mechanism configured to extract concealed data from the cover images based on a set of pre-determined rules; and

a presentation mechanism configured to present the data to a user.

21. The computer system of claim 20,

wherein while extracting the concealed data from the cover images, the decryption mechanism is configured to extract a file which represents a character in the concealed data with at least one image;

and

wherein while presenting the data to the user, the presentation mechanism is configured to display the images which represent the characters in an arrangement that accurately presents the data.

22. The computer system of claim 20, wherein the decryption mechanism is configured to decrypt the extracted file prior to presentation of the data.