Importance

Loading Importance Indicators...

Abstract

A web server computer system includes a virus checker and mechanisms for checking e-mails and their attachments, downloaded files, and web sites for possible viruses. When an e-mail message contains a detected virus, the message is discarded, and both the sender and recipient are informed via e-mail that the message contained a virus. When an e-mail attachment contains a detected virus, the attachment is deleted, and the e-mail message without the attachment is sent to the web client, along with a message explaining that the e-mail message had an attachment that was automatically deleted because it had a virus. When a downloaded file contains a virus, the downloaded file is deleted, and an error message is sent to the web client to inform the web client that the requested file had a virus. When a requested web site (i.e., Uniform Resource Locator (or URL)) has been labeled as a source for a known virus, a message is sent to the web client stating that a virus may have been downloaded from that URL. In addition, if the requested URL has not been labeled as a source for a known virus, but it contains links that have been so labeled, the web page is processed before being sent to the user to identify those potentially dangerous links. In this manner a web server can perform virus checking of different types of information real-time as the information is requested by a web client. In addition, a web client may also request that the server perform virus checking on a particular drive on the web client. If this case, the web server may receive information from the web client drive, scan the information for viruses, and inform the web client whether any viruses were found. In the alternative, the web server may download a client virus checker to the web client and cause the client virus checker to be run on the web client. The preferred embodiments thus allow a virus checker on a web server to dynamically scan incoming data, and to scan web clients coupled to the web server, thereby eliminating the need for virus checking software to be installed on each web client.

Loading the Abstract Image...

First Claim