International Business Machines Corporation

Garreth J Jeremiah

Clark Debs Jeffries

Kevin David Himberger

John Fred Davis

Omkharan Arasaratnam

Charles Steven Lingafelt

Suzanne Carol Deffeyes

Amir Khan

Francis J Hildenbrand, Jr

An approach for authenticating a device is provided. The approach includes a computer implemented method for receiving a first stage biometric variable verification data for accessing the device. The approach further includes a computer-implemented method for computing a second stage binary authentication data for accessing the device. The approach further includes analyzing the received first stage biometric variable verification data and the second stage binary authentication data. The approach further includes receiving the second binary authentication data for accessing the device. The approach further includes generating a confidence score level using the analyzed first stage biometric variable verification data and second stage binary authentication data, wherein, if the first stage biometric variable verification data is verified as having a sufficient confidence level score, then a required password entry, for the second stage binary authentication data requires less than all the normal number of characters for accessing the device.

Authenticating a device based on availability of other authentication methods

A method and associated system for securing sensitive data in a cloud computing environment. A system has proprietary data as a record stored in a database. The system associates a hashing directive with the record prior to sending the data out to a cloud for computing services. The hashing directive classifies each data field of the record into sensitive and transactional. The hashing directive controls a mode of hashing, either one-way hashing or two-way hashing for each sensitive data field associated with the hashing directive. A cloud receives the record secured according to the hashing directive and process the record to generate a result value for a cloud process result field of the record. The system reconstitutes the record the record according to the mode of hashing indicated in the hashing directive.

Securing sensitive data for cloud computing

Website trustworthiness is automatically displayed to a user by pre-establishing a user-defined good list identifying one or more known good website addresses. Each known good website address in the user-defined good list has associated therewith at least one user-defined visual characteristics for display. Subsequently, responsive to the user selecting to visit a website address identified in the user-defined good list, the website is displayed for the user and the user-defined visual characteristics associated therewith from the user-defined good list are also concurrently displayed with the website. The user-defined visual characteristics provide the user with a visual indication of website trustworthiness concurrently with display of the website.

Visual display of website trustworthiness to a user

A system and associated method for securing sensitive data in a cloud computing environment. A customer system has proprietary data as a record stored in a database. The customer system associates a hashing directive with the record prior to sending the data out to a cloud for computing services. The hashing directive classifies each data field of the record into sensitive and transactional. The hashing directive controls a mode of hashing, either one-way hashing or two-way hashing for each sensitive data field associated with the hashing directive. A cloud receives the record secured according to the hashing directive and process the record to generate a result value for a cloud process result field of the record. The customer system reconstitutes the record the record according to the mode of hashing indicated in the hashing directive.

Managing e-mails from a source suspected of sending spam. The e-mails are received at a firewall or router en route to a mail server. A determination is made whether a source has sent an e-mail which exhibits characteristics of spam. In response, subsequent e-mails from the source destined for the mail server are rate-limiting at the firewall or router such that the firewall or router limits a rate at which the subsequent e-mails are forwarded from the firewall or router to the mail server. The rate limit can be a limit on a number of e-mails per unit of time from the source that will be forwarded from the firewall or router to the mail server.

System, method and program to limit rate of transferring messages from suspected spammers

A system, method and program product for blocking unwanted e-mails. An e-mail is identified as unwanted. A source IP address of the unwanted e-mail is determined. Other source IP addresses owned or registered by an owner or registrant of the source IP address of the unwanted e-mail are determined. Subsequent e-mails from the source IP address and the other IP addresses are blocked. This will thwart a spammer who shifts to a new source IP address when its spam is blocked from one source IP address.

System, method and computer program to block spam

A method and system for reducing false positives in the classification of data is provided, wherein the data can be categorized into fields, including creating an assertion table or assessing an existing assertion table for the data whereby the data is placed into categories and each category is assigned one or more classifications, setting a positive and/or negative assertion ratio for each category, determining the accuracy of each classification by assessing a percentage of the data in each category to see if the data is correctly identified by the classification, if the positive assertion ratio is reached, maintaining the classification for each category of data, if the negative assertion ratio is reached, de-asserting the classification.

Method and system for reducing false positives in the classification of data

A system, method and program product for managing e-mails from a source suspected of sending spam. The e-mails are received at a firewall or router en route to a mail server. A determination is made whether a source has sent an e-mail which exhibits characteristics of spam. In response, subsequent e-mails from the source destined for the mail server are rate-limiting at the firewall or router such that the firewall or router limits a rate at which the subsequent e-mails are forwarded from the firewall or router to the mail server. The rate is predetermined and less than a maximum rate at which the firewall or router can physically forward e-mails to the mail server absent the rate limit. A determination is made whether another source has sent another e-mail which exhibits more characteristics of spam than the first said e-mail. In response, subsequent e-mails from this other source are blocked at the firewall or router. The rate limit can be a limit on a number of e-mails per unit of time from the source that will be forwarded from the firewall or router to the mail server.

A method of blocking spam at a firewall involves applying blocking measures for an adaptively determined duration. The blocking measure is then suspended while determining whether the spam has ended. If so, the method resets to an initial state. Otherwise, the blocking measure is re-applied for a second duration.

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Thornhill, Canada

Garreth J Jeremiah