Patents Assigned to ProofPoint, Inc.
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Patent number: 11095507Abstract: A communication system includes multiple Point-of-Presence (POP) interfaces and one or more processors. The multiple POP interfaces are distributed in a Wide-Area Network (WAN) and are configured to communicate with at least a client and a server connected to the WAN. The one or more processors are coupled to the POP interfaces and are configured to (i) assign respective Internet Protocol (IP) addresses to the client and to the server, including embedding state information in the assigned IP addresses, and (ii) route traffic over the WAN between the client and the server, in a stateless manner, based on the state information embedded in the IP addresses.Type: GrantFiled: July 12, 2017Date of Patent: August 17, 2021Assignee: Proofpoint, Inc.Inventor: Etay Bogner
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Patent number: 11038759Abstract: A system, apparatus and method are provided for dynamically updating a configuration of a network device when relevant sources and destinations of network traffic are added, removed or migrated in a network. A configuration of a network device is associated with a set of network addresses representing a set of relevant sources and destinations of network traffic. The set is dynamic in that the membership of the set can change over time to include different network addresses as the set of relevant sources and destinations of network traffic changes over time. One or more data sources are monitored to obtain the network addresses for the set of relevant sources and destinations and to determine if the membership of the set has changed. When a change is detected, the configuration of the network device is updated on the network device to reflect the network addresses that are currently in the set.Type: GrantFiled: April 29, 2019Date of Patent: June 15, 2021Assignee: Proofpoint, Inc.Inventors: Theron D. Tock, Vadim Kurland, Michael P. Horn
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Patent number: 11036778Abstract: Technology is disclosed for detecting, classifying, and/or enforcing policies on social networking activity. The technology can store a content policy, classify content posted to a social network, determine that the classification corresponds to the content policy, and apply an action specified by the content policy to the posted content.Type: GrantFiled: December 30, 2019Date of Patent: June 15, 2021Assignee: PROOFPOINT, INC.Inventors: Richard Banks Sutton, Anthony Lawrence Dorie, Wenchang Yan, Devin Hugh Redmond, Raymond Kruck, Daniel Oshiro Nadir
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Patent number: 11032711Abstract: Systems and methods for analyzing applications (“apps”) on a mobile device for security risks for a company while maintaining the mobile device owner's privacy and confidentiality concerning the applications. The mobile device may be a user's personal device (a “bring your own device”). In an example method, a process generates one or more cryptographic representations of application information for each application on the mobile device. The cryptographic representations may comprise a hash or composite hash. The cryptographic representations may be transmit outside the mobile device to a system which makes a determination and provides an indication whether the application is permitted or not permitted for use at the company. The company can be associated with a hashed permitted or not permitted list. The application information can include application name, executable code, and a version number. The method may include automatically remediating the application if it matches a known risk.Type: GrantFiled: November 8, 2019Date of Patent: June 8, 2021Assignee: Proofpoint, Inc.Inventor: David Alexander Jevans
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Patent number: 11019094Abstract: Methods and systems for malicious message detection and processing are provided. An example method includes detecting, via an intermediary node, a link included in a message, the link being associated with an unknown resource or a known malicious resource. The intermediary node may have a processor and a memory for storing executable instructions to perform the method. The example method further includes hashing a unique identifier for each recipient of the message; coupling each of the hashed unique identifiers with the link to create an unique updated link for each recipient; and for each recipient, replacing the link in the message with their corresponding unique updated link. The method may include causing forwarding of the updated message with the corresponding unique updated link to each recipient. If the resource is a malicious resource, the unique update link may be to a block webpage associated with a trusted resource.Type: GrantFiled: November 7, 2019Date of Patent: May 25, 2021Assignee: PROOFPOINT, INC.Inventors: Angelo Starink, David Knight
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Patent number: 11012447Abstract: Embodiments disclosed herein provide secure communication among enterprise users utilizing social networking sites. A server computer may encrypt a post intended for a social networking site and forward the encrypted data or may save the post locally and send a placeholder to the social networking site. The server may receive a message from the social networking site containing the encrypted data or placeholder and determine that a recipient is authorized to view the original post. The server may then decrypt the data or retrieve the original post for servicing the request. In this way, authorized users of an enterprise can utilize social networking sites, which are independently owned and operated, to communicate with each other in a secure manner.Type: GrantFiled: September 30, 2019Date of Patent: May 18, 2021Assignee: PROOFPOINT, INC.Inventors: Cameron Blair Cooper, Christopher Lee Richter
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Patent number: 10986019Abstract: A communication system includes multiple Point-of-Presence (POP) interfaces distributed in a Wide-Area Network (WAN), and one or more processors coupled to the POP interfaces. The processors are configured to assign to an initiator in the communication system a client Internet Protocol (IP) address, including embedding in the client IP address an affiliation of the initiator with a group of initiators, to assign to a responder in the communication system a service IP address, including embedding in the service IP address an affiliation of the service with a group of responders, and to route traffic between the initiator and the responder, over the WAN via one or more of the POP interfaces, in a stateless manner, based on the affiliation of the initiator and the affiliation of the service, as embedded in the client and service IP addresses.Type: GrantFiled: May 2, 2018Date of Patent: April 20, 2021Assignee: Proofpoint, Inc.Inventors: Etay Bogner, Eduardo Warszawski
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Patent number: 10965701Abstract: A threat actor identification system that obtains domain data for a set of domains, generates domain clusters, determines whether the domain clusters are associated with threat actors, and presents domain data for the clusters that are associated with threat actors to brand owners that are associated with the threat actors. The clusters may be generated based on similarities in web page content, domain registration information, and/or domain infrastructure information. For each cluster, a clustering engine determines whether the cluster is associated with a threat actor, and for clusters that are associated with threat actors, corresponding domain information is stored for presentation to brand owners to whom the threat actor poses a threat.Type: GrantFiled: January 14, 2019Date of Patent: March 30, 2021Assignee: Proofpoint, Inc.Inventors: Gaurav Mitesh Dalal, Hung-Jen Chang, Ali Mesdaq
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Patent number: 10911467Abstract: Provided herein are systems and methods for targeted attack protection using predictive sandboxing. In exemplary embodiments, a method includes retrieving a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) from a message of a user and performing a preliminary determination to see if the URL can be discarded if it is not a candidate for sandboxing. The exemplary method includes computing a plurality of selection criteria factors for the URL if the URL passes the preliminary determination, each selection criteria factor having a respective factor threshold. The method can further include determining if any of the selection criteria factors for the URL exceeds the respective factor threshold for the respective selection criteria factor. Based on the determining, if any of the selection criteria factors exceeds the factor threshold for the selection criteria factor, the exemplary method includes automatically placing the URL in a sandbox for analysis.Type: GrantFiled: July 26, 2019Date of Patent: February 2, 2021Assignee: Proofpoint, Inc.Inventors: Steven Robert Sandke, Bryan Burns
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Patent number: 10896473Abstract: Technology is disclosed for detecting imposters of a brand account. The technology can store a brand profile of the brand account, detect that a message has been publicly communicated to the brand account from a social media account, monitor messages sent publicly to the social media account from other social media accounts by repeatedly comparing the brand profile to metadata of each of the monitored messages, and identify at least one of the other social media accounts as an imposter account based on the comparing. The technology can cease the comparing at predetermined expiration time occurring after the detection of the message that was sent publicly to the brand account.Type: GrantFiled: December 30, 2016Date of Patent: January 19, 2021Assignee: PROOFPOINT, INC.Inventors: Sharon Hüffner, Harold Nguyen, Richard Banks Sutton, Daniel Oshiro Nadir
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Patent number: 10887278Abstract: Taking a zero-configuration approach, a domain name discovery system utilizes, in an iterative process, WHOIS data and infrastructure data for a seed domain to automatically discover domain names having registration and/or infrastructure details that match those of the seed domain. Registration information such as a registered email address associated with a domain name discovered through WHOIS data matching or infrastructure data matching is utilized in a reverse lookup for domain names having infrastructure or WHOIS registered information that fully matches the information associated with the domain name discovered through the iterative process. Domain names discovered through WHOIS data matching, infrastructure data matching, and reverse lookup can be presented through a user interface on a client device communicatively connected to the domain name discovery system over a network. The domain name discovery can be performed periodically or in near real time responsive to receiving a new seed domain.Type: GrantFiled: January 10, 2019Date of Patent: January 5, 2021Assignee: PROOFPOINT, INC.Inventors: Gaurav Mitesh Dalal, Ali Mesdaq
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Patent number: 10789355Abstract: A spammy app detection system may search a database for any new social media application discovered during a recent time period. A spammy app detection algorithm can be executed on the spammy app detection system on an hourly basis to determine whether any of such applications is spammy (i.e., posting to a social media page anomalously). The spammy app detection algorithm has a plurality of stages. When a new social media application fails any of the stages, it is identified as a spammy app. The spammy app detection system can update the database accordingly, ban the spammy application from further posting to a social media page monitored by the spammy app detection system, notify an entity associated with the social media page, further process the spammy application, and so on. In this way, the spammy app detection system can reduce digital risk and spam attacks.Type: GrantFiled: March 28, 2018Date of Patent: September 29, 2020Assignee: PROOFPOINT, INC.Inventors: Harold Nguyen, Ali Mesdaq, Daniel Oshiro Nadir, Anthony Lawrence Dorie
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Patent number: 10785188Abstract: Disclosed is a domain filter capable of determining an n-gram distance between a seed domain and each of a plurality of candidate domains. The domain filter loads a seed domain n-gram for the seed domain and a candidate domain n-gram for each candidate domain in memory, compares the seed domain n-gram and the candidate domain n-gram to identify any identical grams, removes any identical grams from the seed domain n-gram, and determines how many grams are left in the seed domain n-gram, representing the n-gram distance between the seed domain and the candidate domain. The domain filter then compares n-gram distances thus determined with a predetermined threshold, eliminates any candidate domain having an n-gram distance from the seed domain that exceeds the predetermined threshold, and provides remaining candidate domains to a downstream computing facility such as a user interface or an analytical module operating in an enterprise computing environment.Type: GrantFiled: May 22, 2018Date of Patent: September 22, 2020Assignee: Proofpoint, Inc.Inventors: Harold Nguyen, Ali Mesdaq, Kevin Dedon, Michael Fox, Gaurav Dalal
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Patent number: 10778626Abstract: An electronic device will identify an electronic message received by a messaging client that is associated with a first recipient, and it will analyze the electronic message to determine whether the electronic message is a simulated malicious message. Upon determining that electronic message is a simulated malicious message, the device will identify an actuatable element in the electronic message. The actuatable element will include a service address. The device will modify the electronic message by appending a user identifier of the first recipient to the service address of the actuatable element. Then, when the actutable element is actuated, the system may determine whether the first recipient actuated the actuatable element or an alternate recipient did so based on whether the user identifier of the first recipient is still appended (or is the only user identifier appended) to the actuatable element.Type: GrantFiled: February 4, 2019Date of Patent: September 15, 2020Assignee: Proofpoint, Inc.Inventors: Kurt Wescoe, Trevor Tyler Hawthorn, Alan Himler, Patrick H. Veverka, John T. Campbell, Dustin D. Brungart, Norman Sadeh-Koniecpol
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Patent number: 10749887Abstract: Various embodiments assess security risks of users in computing networks. In some embodiments, an interaction item is sent to an end user electronic device. When the end user interacts with the interaction item, the system collects feedback data that includes information about the user's interaction with the interaction item, as well as technical information about the electronic device. The feedback is compared to a plurality of security risk scoring metrics. Based on this comparison, a security risk score for the user with respect to a computing network.Type: GrantFiled: April 20, 2017Date of Patent: August 18, 2020Assignee: Proofpoint, Inc.Inventors: Trevor T. Hawthorn, Norman Sadeh-Koniecpol, Nathan Miller, Jeff Losapio, Kurt Wescoe, Jason Brubaker, Jason Hong
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Patent number: 10685071Abstract: Systems, methods, and computer program products for efficiently storing and accessing graph-oriented information retrieved from disparate sources using an interface that effectively emulates a graph database to access a set of indexed, column-oriented tables. One embodiment is a system that includes a server and a plurality of storage nodes. The server retrieves graph-oriented social networking data for multiple users, identifies vertices, edges and associated properties within the data and stores this information in key-value lookup tables within a column-oriented database. The server can receive graph-oriented queries, convert the graph-oriented query to corresponding key-value lookup queries, and search the tables of the column-oriented database using the key-value lookup queries. The results of the lookup queries can be converted to a graph-oriented representation and presented to a user.Type: GrantFiled: December 9, 2016Date of Patent: June 16, 2020Assignee: PROOFPOINT, INC.Inventor: Justin Patterson
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Patent number: 10686819Abstract: Mobile device security techniques are described. For a specific computing device, for each of a plurality of distinct security categories, a risk score is determined. The determined risk scores are aggregated to obtain an overall risk score.Type: GrantFiled: October 22, 2013Date of Patent: June 16, 2020Assignee: PROOFPOINT, INC.Inventors: Ramana M. Mylavarapu, Ajay Nigam, Vipin Balkatta Hegde
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Patent number: 10679088Abstract: Disclosed is an effective domain name defense solution in which a domain name string may be provided to or obtained by a computer embodying a visual domain analyzer. The domain name string may be rendered or otherwise converted to an image. An optical character recognition function may be applied to the image to read out a text string which can then be compared with a protected domain name to determine whether the text string generated by the optical character recognition function from the image converted from the domain name string is similar to or matches the protected domain name. This visual domain analysis can be dynamically applied in an online process or proactively applied in an offline process to hundreds of millions of domain names.Type: GrantFiled: February 10, 2017Date of Patent: June 9, 2020Assignee: Proofpoint, Inc.Inventors: Gaurav Mitesh Dalal, Ali Mesdaq, Sharon Huffner, Harold Nguyen
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Patent number: 10673814Abstract: Disclosed is a domain engineering analysis solution that determines relevance of a domain name to a brand name in which a domain name, brand name, and identification of a substring of the domain name may be provided to or obtained by a computer embodying a domain engineering analyzer. A list of features may be determined. The list of features may include a lexicon, or a set of key-value pairs that encode information about terms included as substrings in the domain name. Determining the features may include obtaining a language model for each term, analyzing a cluster of language models closest to the obtained language model, and determining and scoring a relevance of each term to the brand name. The determined relevance and score of each term may be provided to a client. This relevance analysis can be dynamically applied in an online process or proactively applied in an offline process.Type: GrantFiled: August 28, 2017Date of Patent: June 2, 2020Assignee: Proofpoint, Inc.Inventors: Sharon Huffner, Ali Mesdaq
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Patent number: 10623435Abstract: Application security analysis including systems and methods for analyzing applications for risk is provided. In an example method, the applications reside on a mobile device configurable to access an enterprise system. The example method includes evaluating each of a plurality of applications variously for privacy, data leakage, and malicious behavior. The example method also includes calculating a risk score for each of the plurality of applications based on the evaluating; and automatically remediating (e.g., quarantining) the applications, of the plurality of applications, for which the risk score meets or exceeds a risk score threshold. The method may evaluate all of the applications residing on a mobile device. The method may include grouping application behaviors, for each of the applications, that indicate an increased risk into groups comprising two or more of privacy risk, a data leakage risk, an account takeover risk, a device takeover risk, and a malware risk.Type: GrantFiled: August 14, 2018Date of Patent: April 14, 2020Assignee: Proofpoint, Inc.Inventors: David Alexander Jevans, Suresh Kumar Basandra