Computer virus control
OwnerLawrence R. Levininventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Virus control is provided for a plurality of clients of an e-mail server associated with a network by centrally monitoring for a pre-defined activity at any of the plurality of clients. On discovery of the pre-defined activity at a given one of the plurality of clients, e-mail traffic from the given client is blocked. The pre-defined activity may be monitoring for e-mail from clients which is addressed to any of a plurality of pre-defined addresses. These pre-defined addresses may be salted through the address book of a client such that they are likely to be utilised by a computer virus which tries to send e-mail.
Claims29
A method of virus control for a plurality of clients of an e-mail server, said e-mail server associated with a network, said method comprising:
- centrally monitoring for a pre-defined activity at any of said plurality of clients;
- on discovery of said pre-defined activity at a given one of said plurality of clients, blocking e-mail traffic from said given client,
- said pre-defined activity comprising receiving an e-mail message from said given client having a pre-defined recipient address.
A method of virus control at a server side for a plurality of clients, said server side handling e-mail traffic to and from a network, comprising:
- receiving an e-mail message at said server side from a given client of said plurality of clients;
- checking a recipient address of said e-mail message for a pre-defined recipient address;
- on discovery of said pre-defined recipient address, blocking e-mail traffic from said given client.
A method for facilitating virus control, comprising:
- salting stored data accessible by each of a plurality of clients of an e-mail server, which data normally contains e-mail addresses, with a plurality of fictitious e-mail addresses, each of said addresses having a valid format.
A processor adapted for virus control, comprising:
- means for monitoring for e-mail from any of a plurality of clients addressed to any of a plurality of pre-defined addresses;
- means for, on discovery of e-mail from a given client addressed to one of said pre-defined addresses, blocking e-mail traffic from said given client.
A computer readable medium, which when loaded into a processor, adapts said processor to:
- monitor for e-mail from any of a plurality of clients addressed to any of a plurality of pre-defined addresses;
- on discovery of e-mail from a given client addressed to one of said pre-defined addresses, block e-mail traffic from said given client.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.