The present application relates generally to the technical field of protecting information associated with a user interface. In one specific example, user information to be received from a user or from form fill functionality associated with a user interface in an network environment is protected against a spoofing or phishing attack or vulnerability.
In recent years, spoofing attacks to illegally obtain user information, in particular banking or payment details of a user, have become a more prevalent.
A spoofing attack (or event) is a situation in which a person or program successfully masquerades as another person or entity by falsifying data, thereby to obtain personal and confidential information of a user. Web page spoofing, or phishing, is a security attack where a legitimate web page, for example a bank or on-line vendor web site, is reproduced with similar characteristics of the original authentic web page, on another server under the control of an attacker. The attacker aims to mislead a user into believing that the user is connected to a trusted web site. Should the user enter any information on the spoofed web site, such as a username, password or banking information, the attacker would obtain this information and succeed in a security breach.
Phishing attacks may be performed with the aid of URL spoofing, where web browser bugs are exploited in order to display incorrect URLs in the browser's location bar.
Alternatively, DNS cache poisoning may be used in order to direct the user away from the legitimate site and to the fake site.
The risks associated with spoofing and phishing attacks have been increased by the use of form fill applications, which provides user information for multiple predefined fields on a user interface or web page that has to be filled in.
To address the risks posed by spoofing and phishing attacks some applications make use of icons on toolbars to indicate that a web page is fraudulent. However, as these icons or toolbars are small and insignificant, users rarely pay attention to them and may even ignore them when providing a form fill instruction.
The present application is illustrated by way of example and not limitation in the figures of the accompanying drawings, in which like references indicate similar elements and in which:
a and 4b show a detailed flow diagram of the method, in accordance with an example embodiment;
A method and system to protect information in a network and in particular, an Internet environment, are described. In the following description, for purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present application. It will be evident, however, to one skilled in the art that the present application may be practiced without these specific details. It will further be appreciated that this application may be relevant to various applications, for example banking web sites, on-line vendor web sites, e.g. e-Bay or Amazon, commercial web sites, or specific payment web sites, e.g. Paypal.
According to one example embodiment, there is provided an information protection system. The system comprises a parser to parse user interface information to be included within a user interface to be displayed to a user by an information display application. The parser identifies at least one field, within the user interface, to receive user information from a user. A detection module is provided to determine whether the user interface information is associated with fraudulent activity. In response to determining that the user interface is associated with fraudulent activity, a form fill module provides a warning indicia in or over the at least one field, when the user interface is presented to a user by the display application.
Other features of the application will be apparent from the accompanying drawings and from the detailed description that follows.
The information display application 12 provides the computer system 14 with display functionality to display information to a user on the GUI 22. For example, the information display application 12, which may be a web browser (e.g. Netscape or Internet Explorer) receives information and data over the Internet 16 from various servers 18 and 20, and displays this information to the user as user interfaces on the GUI 22. The user interface information may be a markup language document, e.g. an HTML document and the user interface may be a web page. The information display application 12 may typically also include functionality to automatically provide predefined user information into identified fields.
As shown in
The information protection system 10 receives, via the information display application 12, user interface information to be displayed by the information protection system 10 as a user interface, e.g. web page, to the user. The parser 28 parses this user interface information and identifies at least one field within the user interface, which forms part of the authorized set of fields, to receive user information from a user. For example, the user interface information may include a number of personal, address and/or banking detail fields to be filled in by the user. Each of these fields may be identified by the parser 28, in combination with the information predefined as authorized fields to receive user information, as a field to receive user information.
The form fill module 26 receives information from a detection module 30 on the authenticity of the source of the user interface information. The detection module 30 determines whether the user interface information is associated with fraudulent activity, e.g. that the user interface information originated from a fraudulent source, and the detection module 30 may alternatively determine whether the user interface information originated from a verified source.
Typically the detection module 30 determines the authenticity of user interface information by comparing certain user interface information obtained from the user interface to be displayed with lists of addresses of fraudulent or verified sources of user interface information stored in a memory 36 of the information protection system 10. By conducting this comparison, the detection module 30 determines whether the user interface information is fraudulent or verified.
Alternatively, the detection module 30 may communicate with the security server 20 to which the computer system 14 has access through an Internet connection, thereby to determine whether the user interface information is associated with fraudulent activity or originated from a verified source.
In response to the detection module 30 determining that the user interface is associated with fraudulent activity, the form fill module 26 is to provide a warning indicia in or over the field or multiple fields identified by the parser 28, when the user interface is presented to the user by the information display application 12. In addition, the form fill module 26 may disable the functionality of the information display application 12 to automatically provide the user information into the fields identified by the parser 28. The form fill module 26 may further prevent the user from manually inputting any information in the identified fields, thereby to provide an even higher level of protection and security.
The warning indicia may vary between applications, but will typically be selected from a striking colour, a warning message, warning signals or a combination thereof. For example, the warning indicia may be various red blocks displayed over the identified fields, with a centered message in black bold letters stating “DO NOT PROVIDE DETAILS: FRAUDULENT WEB SITE”. The warning indicia may, in another example embodiment, be a red stop sign, with the message “STOP—FRAUDULENT SITE” written in it.
Alternatively, in response to the detection module 30 determining that the user interface is not associated with fraudulent activity, the form fill module 26 may enable the functionality of the information display application 12 to automatically provide user information into some or all of the fields identified by the parser 28. In this scenario, the form fill module 26 may enable the functionality of the information display application 12 to automatically provide the user information into the fields identified by the parser 28.
The memory 36 is used to store data relating to the user interface, a predefined authorized set of fields to receive user information, predefined information corresponding to the predefined authorized set of fields, a list of addresses of fraudulent sources of user interface information and a list of addresses of verified sources of user interface information. The detection module 30 may communicate with the security server 20 to which the computer system 14 has access thereby to obtain an updated list of addresses of fraudulent or verified sources of user interface information periodically.
The information protection system 10 also includes a disposable credit card number module 32 to generate a limited use credit card number. The disposable credit card number module 32 is used in certain applications where there is a need for increased security. The disposable credit card number module 32 will generate a credit card number that can only be used once, and will provide this credit card number to the form fill module 26 to automatically fill this number into the designated field identified by the detection module 30. This functionality will only be enabled once the detection module 30 has verified that the user interface information originated from a verified source.
As shown, the predefined authorized set of fields to receive user information 62 may be subdivided in user login information, user personal information, user contact details, user banking details and payment specific details, e.g. Paypal details. User login information may include a username and user password, while user personal information may include the user's name and last name. Contact details may include a telephone number, cellular number, fax number and e-mail address. Banking details may include any type of banking account details, but would typically be the user's type of credit card, the credit card number and expiry date of the credit card. It will be appreciated that other fields may also be included as authorized fields, but that the examples of fields to receive user information are typical fields required by most web pages to either register or transact on the Internet.
The predefined information corresponding to the predefined authorized set of fields 64 may be defined when a user first registers for a form fill application. For example, the user may define information to be automatically filled in on any web page or user interface. It will further be appreciated that more than one set of information may be predefined by a user, for example the user may create a private profile which would include the user's personal and home details, and a business profile that will include the user's business numbers and e-mail.
An example of a list of addresses of fraudulent sources of user interface information 66 is shown in
An example of a list of addresses of verified sources of user interface information 66 is shown in
As mentioned above, both lists are updated periodically by the detection module 30 communicating with the security server 18 to obtain an updated list of addresses of fraudulent or verified sources.
A high-level method according to an example embodiment is now described with reference to
The detection module 30 now determines, as shown in operation 104, whether the user interface information is associated with fraudulent activity; and in response to determining that the user interface information is associated with fraudulent activity, the form fill module 26 provides a warning indicia in or over the at least one field, in operation 106, when the user interface is presented to a user by the information display application. Also, once it is determined that the user interface information is associated with fraudulent activity, and as shown in operation 108, the form fill module 26 disables the functionality of the information display application 12 to automatically provide user information into the identified fields.
In the event that the detection module 30 determines that the user interface information is not associated with fraudulent activity, the form fill module 26 enables, in operation 110, the functionality of the information display application 12 to automatically provide user information into the at least one field.
a and 4b show a detailed flow diagram of the method, in accordance with an example embodiment. In operation 140 of
In operation 144, a list of addresses of fraudulent sources of user interface information and a list of addresses of verified sources of user interface information are stored in the memory 36. These lists may be obtained from the security server 20, by the detection module 30. The detection module 30 may also update the lists from time to time by communicating with the security server 20.
Similar to operation 100 of
In operation 150, the detection module 30 determines whether the user interface information is associated with fraudulent activity, or alternatively, whether the user interface information originated from a verified source. Operation 150, determining whether the user interface information is from a fraudulent or verified source, may include, as shown in operation 152, comparing a network address included in the user interface information with the list of addresses of fraudulent sources 66 stored in the memory 36. Alternatively, operation 150 may include comparing a network address included in the user interface information with the list of addresses of verified sources 68 stored in the memory 36 (operation 154). As shown in operation 156, the detection module 30 may also communicate with the security server 20 to compare a network address included in the user interface information with a list of addresses of fraudulent or verified sources stored in a memory on the server.
Once it has been determined that the user interface information is associated with fraudulent activity, the form fill module 26 provides a warning indicia in or over the at least one field, as shown in operation 158 of
Should it be determined by the detection module 30 that the user interface information originated from a verified source, and as shown in operation 164, a limited use credit card number may be generated by the disposable credit card module 32, for a financial transaction relating to one of the identified fields. Also, in operation 166, the form fill module 26 enables the functionality of the information display application 12 to automatically provide user information into the at least one field.
The form fill module 26 would already have predefined an authorized set of fields to receive user information. For example, the predefined authorized set of fields may be payment method 206, credit card number 208, expiry date of the credit card 210 and the card holder's name 212. The form fill module 26 has further already predefined and stored user information which corresponds with these authorized fields in the memory 36. This stored information will be filled in the open fields 214, 216, 218 and 220, should the user interface information have originated from a verified source. A PayPal form fill pop-up 222 is also shown, requesting information from the user to select PayPal as the payment method.
The information protection system, through the parser 128, parses the interface information which is to be included within the user interface and identifies from the parsed user interface information, the fields within the user interface, to receive user information e.g. from
The detection module 30 now determines that the user interface information is not associated with fraudulent activity but that the user interface information originated from a verified source.
As shown in the screenshot 260 of
In the final screen shot 280 of
The exemplary computer system 400 includes a processor 402 (e.g., a central processing unit (CPU) a graphics processing unit (GPU) or both), a main memory 404 and a static memory 406, which communicate with each other via a bus 408. The computer system 400 may further include a video display unit 410 (e.g., a liquid crystal display (LCD) or a cathode ray tube (CRT)). The computer system 400 also includes an alphanumeric input device 412 (e.g., a keyboard), a cursor control device 414 (e.g., a mouse), a disk drive unit 416, a signal generation device 418 (e.g., a speaker) and a network interface device 420. The disk drive unit 416 includes a machine-readable medium 422 on which is stored one or more sets of instructions (e.g., software 424) embodying any one or more of the methodologies or functions described herein. The software 424 may also reside, completely or at least partially, within the main memory 404 and/or within the processor 402 during execution thereof by the computer system 400, the main memory 404 and the processor 402 also constituting machine-readable media.
The software 424 may further be transmitted or received over a network 426 via the network interface device 420.
While the machine-readable medium 422 is shown in an exemplary embodiment to be a single medium, the term “machine-readable medium” should be taken to include a single medium or multiple media (e.g., a centralized or distributed database, and/or associated caches and servers) that store the one or more sets of instructions. The term “machine-readable medium” shall also be taken to include any medium that is capable of storing, encoding or carrying a set of instructions for execution by the machine and that cause the machine to perform any one or more of the methodologies of the present invention. The term “machine-readable medium” shall accordingly be taken to include, but not be limited to, solid-state memories, optical and magnetic media, and carrier wave signals.
Thus, a method and system to protect information have been described. Although the present invention has been described with reference to specific exemplary embodiments, it will be evident that various modifications and changes may be made to these embodiments without departing from the broader spirit and scope of the invention. Accordingly, the specification and drawings are to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense.
This application is based upon and claims the benefit of priority of U.S. application Ser. No. 11/365,644, filed on Feb. 28, 2006, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
Number | Date | Country | |
---|---|---|---|
Parent | 11365644 | Feb 2006 | US |
Child | 14820205 | US |