Secure electronic mail system with configurable cryptographic engine

• US 7,822,820 B2
• Filed: 06/30/2006
• Issued: 10/26/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 07/01/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Appriver Canada, ULC (Open Text Corporation)
• Original Assignee: 0733660 Bc Ltd.
• Inventors: Astudillo, Esteban, McLean, Matt, Chen, Kung Ming, LeVasseur, Thierry, Rasmussen, Jeremy, Houg, Derek
• Primary Examiner(s): Dinh; Khanh Q
• Assistant Examiner(s): Tran; Nghi V
• Application Number:
  US11/427,943
• Publication Number:
  US 20070113101A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,579 Days
• Field of Search: 709/204, 709/205, 709/206
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/60 Protecting data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/602 Providing cryptographic facilities or services
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• 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 2209/68 Special signature format, e.g. XML format
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/80 Wireless network architectures or network communication protocols for wireless network security H04W12/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/00 User-to-user messaging in packet-switching networks, transmitted according to store-and-forward or real-time protocols, e.g. e-mail
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/02 using automatic reactions or user delegation, e.g. automatic replies or chatbot-generated messages
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/18 Commands or executable codes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/212 using filtering or selective blocking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/214 using selective forwarding
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/234 for tracking messages
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/42 Mailbox-related aspects, e.g. synchronisation of mailboxes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/56 Unified messaging, e.g. interactions between e-mail, instant messaging or converged IP messaging [CPM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0428 wherein the data content is protected, e.g. by encrypting or encapsulating the payload
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/08 for authentication of entities cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication H04L9/32
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/12 Applying verification of the received information cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for data integrity or data verification H04L9/32
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/123 received data contents, e.g. message integrity
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/126 the source of the received data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/145 : the attack involving the propagation of malware through the network, e.g. viruses, trojans or worms
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/168 : above the transport layer
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/306 : intercepting packet switched data communications, e.g. Web, Internet or IMS communications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 : based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• 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 9/3247 : involving digital signatures
• 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

An e-mail system is disclosed that overcomes many deficiencies of, but is backward compatible with, existing e-mail systems. Embodiments of the system may include various features, including but not limited to: (1) secure transfer of e-mail messages, without the need for users to replace existing e-mail clients or to change e-mail addresses; (2) tracking of all actions performed in connection with an e-mail transmission; (3) the ability for a recipient to view information about an e-mail message, optionally including information about how other addressees have responded to it, before deciding whether to retrieve the e-mail message; (4) the aggregation of entire e-mail conversations into a single threaded view; (5) the ability to include both private and public messages in a single e-mail communication; (6) sender control over downstream actions performed in connection with an e-mail message; (7) flexible control over cryptographic methods used to encrypt emails messages for storage.

Claims

1. A secure e-mail system, comprising:

a server system including;

a secure e-mail service configured to;

receive a request from a sender to subscribe to the e-mail service;

subscribe the sender to the e-mail service;

receive, at a time of composing of an original e-mail message by the sender, a permission request from a sender computing device associated with the sender, the permission request including a request for authorization to send the original e-mail message to a recipient using the secure e-mail service,

authorize sending of the e-mail message by the sender via the secure e-mail service responsive to the permission request, based on the sender being subscribed to the secure e-mail service,

receive the e-mail message in unencrypted form from the sender computing device via an HTTPS communications protocol,

receive a request from a recipient computing device for the original e-mail message, and

transmit the original e-mail message to the recipient computing device using the secure e-mail service, in response to the request from the recipient computing device;

a centralized message repository for storing the e-mail message received from the sender computing device and for storing other e-mail messages associated with the original e-mail message, including a reply e-mail message addressed to the sender from the recipient;

a cryptographic engine that encrypts the e-mail message with a cryptographic method designated by an administrator of the secure e-mail service, prior to storage of the e-mail message at the centralized message repository, and decrypts the e-mail message at the server system prior to delivery to the recipient upon receiving a request for retrieval of the e-mail message from the recipient; and

an interface executable on a computing device that provides functionality for the administrator to add an executable cryptographic method to the cryptographic engine, and to designate a particular executable cryptographic method to be used to encrypt and/or decrypt e-mail messages that are received and sent using the secure e-mail service at the server system.

2. The secure e-mail system of claim 1, wherein the system is configured to determine whether the executable cryptographic method supplied via the interface is digitally signed by a certification authority.

3. The secure e-mail system of claim 1, wherein the interface provides functionality for the administrator to set up a plurality of secure e-mail services on the server system, and to designate different executable cryptographic methods for use with different ones of said secure e-mail services.

4. The secure e-mail system of claim 3, further comprising an e-mail client component executable on the sender computing device that provides an option for the sender of the e-mail message to select from the plurality of secure e-mail services for sending the e-mail message.

5. The secure e-mail system of claim 4, wherein the e-mail client component is an e-mail client plug-in that runs in conjunction with an e-mail client program.

6. The secure e-mail system of claim 4, wherein the e-mail client component is, or is part of, a web-based e-mail interface.

7. The secure e-mail system of claim 1, where the secure e-mail service is configured to, at the time of the recipient'"'"'s attempt to forward the e-mail message, check the permission request against a sender-created forwarding whitelist and/or a forwarding blacklist, before granting or denying permission to forward the e-mail message by the recipient to another user.

8. A secure e-mail system for transferring e-mail between a server system and a plurality of client computing devices, comprising:

a cryptographic engine that includes a plurality of different executable cryptographic methods for encrypting an e-mail message prior to storage, and decrypting the e-mail message prior to delivery to a recipient of the e-mail message,

wherein at least some of the cryptographic methods provide different levels of encryption than others;

a centralized message repository on the server system for storing e-mail messages received from the plurality of client computing devices;

a plurality of secure e-mail services that are executable on the server system and use the cryptographic engine to encrypt and decrypt e-mail messages, wherein each of the secure e-mail services is configured to use a particular one of the executable cryptographic methods, and at least some of the e-mail services are configured to use different executable cryptographic methods than others, so that different ones of said e-mail services provide different levels of security than others, and wherein a particular e-mail service is configured to receive a permission request from a sender computing device for authorization to send the e-mail message using the particular e-mail service, and wherein the particular e-mail service is configured to authorize sending of the e-mail message via the particular e-mail service based on the sender being subscribed to the particular e-mail service; and

an e-mail client component, executable on at least one of the client computing devices, that provides functionality for a sender of an e-mail message to select from among the plurality of e-mail services for sending the e-mail message to the recipient, and for an administrator to add a new executable cryptographic method to the cryptographic engine;

wherein the e-mail client component is configured to communicate with each e-mail service using a secure HTTPS communications protocol to send and receive e-mail messages between the e-mail client component and the server system, said e-mail messages being encrypted at the server system according to a selected cryptographic method by the cryptographic engine and stored in encrypted form on the centralized message repository.

9. The secure e-mail system of claim 8, wherein the e-mail client component is an e-mail client plug-in that runs in conjunction with an e-mail client program.

10. The secure e-mail system of claim 8, wherein the e-mail client component is, or is part of, a web-based e-mail interface.

11. The secure e-mail system of claim 8, further comprising an interface that provides functionality for the administrator to add the new executable cryptographic method to the cryptographic engine.

12. The secure e-mail system of claim 11, wherein the interface inhibits the addition of executable cryptographic methods that are not digitally signed by a certification authority.

13. The secure e-mail system of claim 11, wherein the interface additionally provides functionality for the administrator to designate particular executable cryptographic methods to be used with particular ones of said e-mail services.

14. The secure e-mail system of claim 8, wherein the server system comprises multiple physical servers.

15. The secure e-mail system of claim 8, wherein the e-mail client component and plurality of e-mail services are configured to transfer the e-mail messages between senders and recipients without use of a store-and-forward model.