Symantec Corporation

Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Milan Shah

Jon Sakoda

Anandamoy Roychowdhary

Arthur William Gilliland

Francis Aurelio Desouza

Eric Lyle Lorenzo

Jeffrey C Stamerjohn

Arnold S Miller

Yuval Neeman

Alan R Whitney

Peter J Cook

Sudheer Koneru

Keith K Lau

Khaled W Hassounah

The present invention relates generally to a system and method that provides add-on services and/or facilitates authentication, authorization and/or secure communications of a user using a dialog based interactive protocol and accessing a first computer system, separately from the authentication and security mechanism(s) provided by a second computer system using a dialog based interactive protocol system.

System and method for add-on services, secondary authentication, authorization and/or secure communication for dialog based protocols and systems

Methods and systems for reducing the spread of malware in communication between an instant message (IM) client and an IM server are described. An IM filter module (IM FM) is configured to examine incoming messages from an IM server to an IM client and outgoing messages from the IM client to the IM server. The IM filter module is further configured to analyze relationship among the incoming and outgoing messages and determine whether one or more messages contain malware based on the analysis of relationship among the incoming and outgoing messages.

Methods and systems for detecting and preventing the spread of malware on instant messaging (IM) networks by analyzing message traffic patterns

Methods and systems for reducing the spread of malware in communication between an instant message (IM) client and an IM server are described. A malware trapping system (MTS) creates and registers a set of virtual IM users with an IM server. The virtual IM users include account names by which other users of the IM server can communicate with the virtual IM users. The MTS publicizes the account names of the virtual IM users, which causes sources of malware to illicitly acquire the account names of the virtual IM users. The MTS identifies any IM user sending a message to one of the virtual users as a source of malware. The MTS also identifies such a message as a malware message and collects information about the sources of malware and malware messages and stores the information in a database. An IM filter module, accessing the information stored in the database, identifies and blocks malware messages based on the information.

Methods and systems for detecting and preventing the spread of malware on instant messaging (IM) networks by using automated IM users

Methods and systems for reducing the spread of malware in communication between an instant message (IM) client and an IM server are described. An IM filter module (IM FM) is configured to intercept a buddy list sent from an IM server to an IM client, add one or more fictitious buddies to the intercepted buddy list, and forward the buddy list with the one or more fictitious buddies to the IM client. The IM FM is further configured to identify a computer that hosts the IM client as a source of malware based on messages sent by the IM client to at least one of the fictitious buddies and to determine that the host computer of the IM client is a source of malware if a content of the messages sent to the at least one of the fictitious buddies contains malware.

Methods and systems for detecting and preventing the spread of malware on instant messaging (IM) networks by using fictitious buddies

Methods and systems for reducing the spread of malware in communication between an instant message (IM) client and an IM server are described. An IM filter module (IM FM) is configured to analyze messages exchanged between an IM server and an IM client. The IM FM also identifies one or more messages as possibly containing malware among the exchanged messages and assigns a confidence level to each identified message. A confidence level represents a probability of a message containing malware. A Bayesian filter is configured to train itself using the identified messages and the confidence levels and adjust the confidence levels. A feedback training mechanism for the Bayesian filter is also included. In particular, the IM FM examines additional messages exchanged between the IM server and IM client, identifies one or more messages as possibly containing malware among the additional messages using the adjusted confidence values. The IM FM also assigns a confidence level to each additionally identified message. The Bayesian filter is further configured to re-train itself using the identified messages, the additionally identified messages, and the confidence levels and adjust the confidence levels.

Methods and systems for detecting and preventing the spread of malware on instant messaging (IM) networks by using Bayesian filtering

In an authentication system, a first computer system provides a desired service and a second computer system provides a dialog-based interactive protocol service (e.g., an instant messaging service). Users of a second computer system can be authenticated by the first system using a mechanism separate from the dialog based interactive protocol system, so the users can then access the first system using the dialog based interactive protocol systems (even though the systems are not owned or necessarily trusted by the first system). The authentication system enables communication between the first and second computer systems by establishing the dialog session between the computer systems and transmitting to the second computer system a link to a site used to authenticate this computer system. The authentication system associates authentication information (e.g., a unique identifier and/or an authorization token, etc.) with the dialog and uses this information to enable the second computer system to have authorized communications with the first.

Methods and systems for creating a full-featured, individually customized email system by allowing end-users of an electronic mail system to extend standard electronic mail protocol for the creation of user-defined commands that are recognizable and executable by an electronic mail system and that can alter processing performed after a server accepts a piece of electronic mail. Routine events are raised during the communication of information and processing of data that give rise to the execution of registered commands. The commands are registered in an event-binding database and include standard commands and user-defined commands that are executed according to priority.

Methods and systems for end-user extensible electronic mail

Methods and systems for end-users extensible electronic mail

The present invention is a technique for doing an asynchronous, breadth-first expansion of e-mail distribution lists, while being able to control the amount of resources needed to complete the expansion operation. The breadth first DL expansion technique described here correctly handles circular references while expanding distribution lists asynchronously, in a breadth-first fashion, and without requiring large amount of resources. The present invention provides a mechanism to control how many lookup requests are performed in parallel and the maximum amount of memory resources required to complete the DL expansion.

System and method for breadth first asynchronous expansion of distribution lists with throttling

A distributed file system uses objects to model the behavior of components of the distributed file system. Each object has an associated logical path name and physical address. An aggregation of all the logical path names comprises a distributed name space which can be logically partitioned into domains. Each domain includes a domain folder object which maps logical path names of objects in the domain containing the domain folder object, into addresses in the distributed system where the objects are stored. The addresses of the objects are used to access the objects in order to retrieve information from the distributed system.

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Issaquah, WA, United States of America

Milan Shah