Instant Messaging Malware Protection via Human Verification
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Solution Overview
Problem
Instant messaging (IM) networks are vulnerable to malware threats, such as IM worms and bots, which can propagate and mutate rapidly, compromising enterprise and public networks by sending harmful messages that appear to come from trusted users, making it difficult to distinguish between human-created and malware-generated messages.
Innovation Solution
A method involving an IM detail database that records message details as they are typed, including sender and recipient names, metadata, and timestamps, to differentiate between human-created and malware-generated messages, with an encrypted signal inserted into messages confirmed to be human-made, allowing only those messages to be transmitted or decrypted for display.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If IM networks are opened to allow rapid communication adoption, then information sharing ability and decision-making speed are improved, but vulnerability to malware threats increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary verification mechanism that checks whether messages were created through the official IM interface before allowing transmission. This mediator validates the origin of messages by checking for the presence of an IM window and interface elements, thereby preventing malware from sending fraudulent messages while allowing legitimate communication to proceed uninterrupted.
2Reliability
If malware detection and blocking mechanisms are implemented, then network security is improved, but message transmission speed and communication efficiency may deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary verification by checking whether an IM window exists and whether message creation interface elements are present before the message transmission occurs. This preliminary action identifies legitimate messages in advance, allowing them to be transmitted without delay, while malware messages are blocked before they can propagate, thus maintaining both security and speed.
3Measurement precision
If comprehensive message verification is performed to distinguish human-created from malware-generated messages, then accuracy in identifying legitimate messages is improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and checks for specific essential elements that must be present in legitimate message creation interfaces (such as IM window presence and interface control elements). By focusing verification on these critical extracted elements rather than performing comprehensive analysis of all message attributes, the system achieves high identification accuracy while maintaining relatively simple verification logic.
Data Source
AI summary
A computing device capable of instant messaging (IM) contains IM anti-malware software for preventing the transmission of malware-created IMs and opening potentially harmful IMs that it receives. When transmitting an IM, the software checks to ensure that the message being sent was created by the user (a human being) and not by IM malware, such as an IM BOT. This is done by copying details of a message as it is being typed by a user into a database and searching for that data before an IM is transmitted from the device. The software also ensures that when it receives an IM from an outside source, that the message contains a special encrypted signal that was inserted into the message by the source when the source has determined that the message was created by a human being. If the special signal is not found, it is presumed that the message was created by malware and may be discarded. Ensuring that an IM message is created by a human being is by leveraging a feature in IM client software that provides the name of the person typing the message as the message is being created.