System and method for encrypting electronic documents containing confidential information

A system for protecting electronic documents containing confidential information, the system comprising:

• a hardware processor configured to:
• assign one or more electronic marks to a document, wherein the one or more electronic marks includes a symmetric encryption key and a symmetric encryption algorithm;
• monitor continuously and in real-time access activity with respect to the document;
• in response to receiving a request from a user to access the document, check validity of a digital certificate of the user, check permissions to access the document by analyzing metadata of the document and by analyzing one or more access rules, wherein the metadata includes the one or more electronic marks, and wherein the one or more access rules links a list of permitted electronic marks to one or more users;
• deny access to the document and send a notification to a server indicating an attempted unauthorized access to the document, in response to determining that the one or more electronic marks are not included in the list of permitted electronic marks for the user requesting the access to the document or in response to determining that the digital certificate of the user is not valid;
• analyze attributes of the one or more electronic marks, in response to determining that the one or more electronic marks are included in the list of permitted electronic marks and in response to determining that the digital certificate of the user is valid;
• and
• automatically decrypt the document, if an attribute of encryption is indicated in the one or more electronic marks, based on the symmetric encryption key and the symmetric encryption algorithm included in the one or more electronic marks.

A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising computer executable instructions for protecting electronic documents containing confidential information, including instructions for:

• assigning one or more electronic marks to a document, wherein the one or more electronic marks includes a symmetric encryption key and a symmetric encryption algorithm;
• monitoring continuously and in real-time access activity with respect to the document;
• in response to receiving a request from a user to access the document, checking validity of a digital certificate of the user, checking permissions to access the document by analyzing metadata of the document and by analyzing one or more access rules, wherein the metadata includes the one or more electronic marks, and wherein the one or more access rules links a list of permitted electronic marks to one or more users;
• denying access to the document and sending a notification to a server indicating an attempted unauthorized access to the document, in response to determining that the one or more electronic marks are not included in the list of permitted electronic marks for the user requesting the access to the document or in response to determining that the digital certificate of the user is not valid;
• analyzing attributes of the one or more electronic marks, in response to determining that the one or more electronic marks are included in the list of permitted electronic marks and in response to determining that the digital certificate of the user is valid;
• and
• automatically decrypting the document, if an attribute of encryption is indicated in the one or more electronic marks, based on the symmetric encryption key and the symmetric encryption algorithm included in the one or more electronic marks.