System and Method for Identifying Security Breach Attempts of a Website

[0001] This invention generally relates to website security. More specifically, this invention relates to a system and method for identifying security breach attempts of a website.

[0002] In February 2005, Joe Lopez, a businessman from Florida, filed a suit against Bank of America after unknown hackers stole $90,000 from his Bank of America account. The money had been transferred to Latvia.

[0003] An investigation showed that Mr. Lopez's computer was infected with a malicious program, “Backdoor Coreflood”, which records every keystroke and sends this information to malicious users via the Internet. This is how the hackers got hold of Joe Lopez's user name and password, since Mr. Lopez often used the Internet to manage his Bank of America account. Joe Lopez's losses were caused by a combination of overall carelessness and an ordinary keylogging program.

[0004] The term ‘keylogger’ itself is neutral, and the word describes the program's function. Most sources define a keylogger as a software program designed to secretly monitor and log all keystrokes.

[0005] Legitimate programs may have a keylogging function which can be used to call certain program functions using “hotkeys,” or to toggle between keyboard layouts (e.g. Keyboard Ninja). There is a lot of legitimate software which is designed to allow administrators to track what employees do throughout the day, or to allow users to track the activity of third parties on their computers. The ethical boundary, however, between justified monitoring and espionage is a fine line. Legitimate software is often used deliberately to steal confidential user information such as passwords.

[0006] Moreover, the justifications listed above are more subjective than objective; the situations can all be resolved using other methods. Additionally, any legitimate keylogging program can still be used with malicious or criminal intent. Today, keyloggers are mainly used to steal user data relating to various online payment systems, and virus writers are constantly writing new keylogger Trojans for this very purpose.

[0007] Furthermore, many keyloggers hide themselves in the system (i.e. they have rootkit functionality), which makes them fully-fledged Trojan programs. As such programs are extensively used by cyber criminals, detecting them is a priority for antivirus companies.

[0008] In the field of computer security, phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Communications purporting to be from popular social web sites, auction sites, online payment processors or IT Administrators are commonly used to lure the unsuspecting public. Phishing is typically carried out by e-mail or instant messaging, and it often directs users to enter details at a fake website whose look and feel are almost identical to the legitimate one. Even when using server authentication, it may require tremendous skill to detect that the website is fake. Phishing is an example of social engineering techniques used to fool users, and exploits the poor usability of current web security technologies. Attempts to deal with the growing number of reported phishing incidents include legislation, user training, public awareness, and technical security measures.

[0009] According to some embodiments of the present invention, there is provided a website security system, for detecting security breach attempts associated with Trojan applications residing on a client computer, comprised of one or more of the following components:

• • [0010] 1. a code of a website;
  • [0011] 2. an anti-trojan software module, functionally associated with the code of the website. The anti-trojan software module may be adapted to monitor, when instanced on a client computer, one or more communications between the client computer and the website and to detect differences between one or more parameters of the communications, such as the size of the communication, and the expected parameters of a communication of the type in question. The anti-trojan software module may be further adapted to send a message to a server associated with the website, in the event there is a difference between one or more parameters of a communication and the expected parameters of a communication of the type in question; and
  • [0012] 3. a server which may be adapted to provide a client computer with the website code and the software module.
  • [0013] 4. a server associated with the website, which server may be adapted to modify user account permissions in response to receiving a message from the software module, relating to the user account.

[0014] According to some further embodiments of the present invention, there is provided a website security system, for detecting security breach attempts associated with a phishing scheme, comprised of one or more of the following components:

• • [0015] 1. a code of a first website;
  • [0016] 2. an anti-phishing software module, functionally associated with the code of the first website. The anti-phishing software module may be adapted to detect its own instancement on a server not associated with the first website and, when it detects its own instancement on a server not associated with the first website, may be further adapted to perform one or more of the actions selected from the group of actions consisting of: (a) sending a warning to the first website's proprietor, (b) sending a warning to the supplier of the software module, (c) sending a warning to an investigative body, (d) reporting the IP address of the unassociated server to the first website's proprietor (e) reporting the IP address of the unassociated server to the supplier of the software module, (f) reporting the IP address of the unassociated server to an investigative body, (g) reporting further details relating to the instancement to the supplier of the software module, (h) reporting further details relating to the instancement to the first website's proprietor, and (i) reporting further details relating to the instancement to an investigative body; and
  • [0017] 3. a server which may be adapted to provide a client computer with the website code and the software module.
  • [0018] 4. a second software module, functionally associated with said first website and adapted to scan other websites and to report other websites containing graphics or text patterns similar to those contained in the first website. The second software module may be further adapted to target for scanning, websites selected from the group of websites consisting of: (a) websites with new domain names, (b) websites with domain names that have recently changed ownership, and (c) websites with domain names similar to the first website's domain name.
  • [0019] 5. a third software module, functionally associated with the first website and which third software module may be adapted to scan emails and to report emails masquerading as an email being sent by the proprietor of the first website.

[0020] According to some further embodiments of the present invention, The website security system, for detecting security breach attempts associated with a phishing scheme, may further comprise a file, such as an image file, stored on a server associated with the website, which file may not be part of the code that is sent to a browser when it navigates to the website. Accordingly, the anti-phishing software module may be further adapted to locate said file every time it is instanced and to determine that it has been instanced on a server, not associated with said website, when it cannot locate the file.

[0021] According to yet further embodiments of the present invention, there is provided a website security system, for detecting security breach attempts associated with a man in the browser scheme, comprised of one or more of the following components:

• • [0022] 1. a code of a website;
  • [0023] 2. an anti-mib software module, functionally associated with the code of the website and adapted to encrypt user information, at the application level, using a changing public encryption key associated with the website. The anti-mib software module may be further adapted to receive a public encryption key upon being served to and/or upon instancement on a client browser. According to yet further embodiments of the present invention, the anti-mib software module may be adapted to create a public encryption key upon being served to a client browser; and
  • [0024] 3. a server which may be adapted to provide a client computer with the website code and the software module.

[0025] According to some further embodiments of the present invention, there is provided a website security system, for detecting security breach attempts associated with a pharming scheme, comprised of one or more of the following components:

• • [0026] 1. a code of a first website;
  • [0027] 2. an anti-pharming software module, functionally associated with the code of the first website. The anti-pharming software module may be adapted to, when instanced on a client computer, monitor one or more parameters of a communication link between the client computer and a server of a website with which the user's browser is communicating, and to detect differences between the one or more parameters of the communication link and expected parameters for a link with a server associated with the first website.
    • [0028] The one or more parameters being monitored by the anti-pharming software module may include: (a) the domain name, (b) the IP address associated by the user's browser with the domain name, (c) the communication protocol, (d) the authenticity of the digital certificate being presented to the user's browser by the server with which it is communicating, and/or (e) the content of the digital certificate being presented to the user's browser by the server with which it is communicating.
    • [0029] According to further embodiments of the present invention, the anti-pharming software module may be adapted, when it detects differences between said one or more parameters of the communication link and expected parameters for a link with a server associated with the first website, to perform one or more of the following actions: (a) terminate the communication, (b) report the detection to the user, (c) report the detection to the first website operator, (d) report the detection to the supplier of the software module, (e) report the detection to an investigative body, (f) send information relating to the server with which the user's browser is communicating to the user, (g) send information relating to the server with which the user's browser is communicating to the first website operator, (h) send information relating to the server with which the user's browser is communicating to an investigative body, and (i) send information relating to the server with which the user's browser is communicating to the supplier of the software module.
  • [0030] 3. a server which may be adapted to provide a client computer with the website code and the software module.
  • [0031] 4. a server associated with the first website which may be adapted to modify user account permissions in response to receiving a message from the software module.

[0036] In the following detailed description, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the invention. However, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that the present invention may be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, well-known methods, procedures, components and circuits have not been described in detail so as not to obscure the present invention.

[0037] Unless specifically stated otherwise, as apparent from the following discussions, it is appreciated that throughout the specification discussions utilizing terms such as “processing”, “computing”, “calculating”, “determining”, or the like, refer to the action and/or processes of a computer or computing system, or similar electronic computing device, that manipulate and/or transform data represented as physical, such as electronic, quantities within the computing system's registers and/or memories into other data similarly represented as physical quantities within the computing system's memories, registers or other such information storage, transmission or display devices. The term server may refer to a single server or to a functionally associated cluster of servers.

[0038] Embodiments of the present invention may include apparatuses for performing the operations herein. This apparatus may be specially constructed for the desired purposes, or it may comprise a general purpose computer selectively activated or reconfigured by a computer program stored in the computer. Such a computer program may be stored in a computer readable storage medium, such as, but is not limited to, any type of disk including floppy disks, optical disks, CD-ROMs, magnetic-optical disks, read-only memories (ROMs), random access memories (RAMs) electrically programmable read-only memories (EPROMs), electrically erasable and programmable read only memories (EEPROMs), magnetic or optical cards, or any other type of media suitable for storing electronic instructions, and capable of being coupled to a computer system bus.

[0039] The processes and displays presented herein are not inherently related to any particular computer or other apparatus. Various general purpose systems may be used with programs in accordance with the teachings herein, or it may prove convenient to construct a more specialized apparatus to perform the desired method. The desired structure for a variety of these systems will appear from the description below. In addition, embodiments of the present invention are not described with reference to any particular programming language. It will be appreciated that a variety of programming languages may be used to implement the teachings of the inventions as described herein.

[0040] Terms in this application relating to distributed data networking, such as send or receive, may be interpreted in reference to Internet protocol suite, which is a set of communications protocols that implement the protocol stack on which the Internet and most commercial networks run. It has also been referred to as the TCP/IP protocol suite, which is named after two of the most important protocols in it: the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the Internet Protocol (IP), which were also the first two networking protocols defined. Today's IP networking represents a synthesis of two developments that began in the 1970s, namely LANs (Local Area Networks) and the Internet, both of which have revolutionized computing.

[0041] The Internet Protocol suite—like many protocol suites—can be viewed as a set of layers. Each layer solves a set of problems involving the transmission of data, and provides a well-defined service to the upper layer protocols based on using services from some lower layers. Upper layers are logically closer to the user and deal with more abstract data, relying on lower layer protocols to translate data into forms that can eventually be physically transmitted. The TCP/IP reference model consists of four layers.

[0042] Layers in the Internet Protocol Suite

[0043] The IP suite uses encapsulation to provide abstraction of protocols and services. Generally a protocol at a higher level uses a protocol at a lower level to help accomplish its aims. The Internet protocol stack has never been altered, by the IETF, from the four layers defined in RFC 1122. The IETF makes no effort to follow the seven-layer OSI model and does not refer to it in standards-track protocol specifications and other architectural documents.

4. Application	DNS, TFTP, TLS/SSL, FTP, Gopher, HTTP, IMAP, IRC,
	NNTP, POP3, SIP, SMTP, SNMP, SSH, TELNET, ECHO, RTP,
	PNRP, rlogin, ENRP
	Routing protocols like BGP, which for a variety of reasons
	run over TCP, may also be considered part of the application or
	network layer.
3. Transport	TCP, UDP, DCCP, SCTP, IL, RUDP
2. Internet	Routing protocols like OSPF, which run over IP, are also to
	be considered part of the network layer, as they provide path
	selection. ICMP and IGMP run over IP and are considered part of
	the network layer, as they provide control information.
	IP (IPv4, IPv6)
	ARP and RARP operate underneath IP but above the link
	layer so they belong somewhere in between.
1. Network access	Ethernet, Wi-Fi, token ring, PPP, SLIP, FDDI, ATM, Frame
	Relay, SMDS

[0044] It should be understood that any topology, technology and/or standard for computer networking (e.g. mesh networks, infiniband connections, RDMA, etc.), known today or to be devised in the future, may be applicable to the present invention.

[0045] The present invention is a method and system for detecting, reporting and preventing an attempted security breach of a commercial website (for example a banking website), such as identity theft, website duplication (mirroring/Phishing), MITB (man in the browser) attacks, MITM (man in the middle) attacks and so on. According to some embodiments of the present invention, there may be provided an anti-trojan software module functionally associated with the website, such as embedded in a website's code, and adapted to detect when a computer of a user of the website is infected with a key logger or other Trojan application. According to further embodiments of the present invention, an anti-phishing software module may be embedded in the code of the website and may be adapted to transmit to a server associated with the website and/or a server associated with the entity responsible for the anti-phishing software module a warning message when the code of the website has been copied and/or instanced on a server other than the website's server, usually residing in a domain other than the native domain of the website, i.e. a phishing attempt. According to yet further embodiments of the present invention, an anti-pharming software module may be embedded in the website's code, which anti-pharming software module may be adapted to detect, report and/or prevent an attempt to intercept data (i.e. pharming) transferred from a user to the website, including authentication data.

[0046] According to some embodiments of the present invention, where an anti-trojan software module functionally associated with the website is adapted to detect when a computer of a user of the website is infected with a key logger or other Trojan application, the anti-trojan software module may compare one or more parameters of communications between the user's computer to the website (e.g. the size of the communication, the number of user inputs included in the communication, the content of the communication, etc.) against expected parameters of a communication of the type in question. The anti-trojan software module may be pre-programmed with or receive from the website data indicating the expected parameters of the different communications that may be received by the website. The anti-trojan software module may, for example, check responses that are to be sent from a user's computer to the website server. If the responses' format, size, number of user inputs or other parameter is different from the ordinary size, format, number of user inputs or other parameter of such a type of response, a key logger or other Trojan application may be operative on the user's computer and may be attempting to record the user's credentials on the website or otherwise breach the system's security. Similarly, the anti-trojan software module may compare the contents of a specific communication (such as the contents of a specific page of the website) with the expected contents of the type of communication in question, the number of user inputs included in the communication and/or any other parameters of the communication. When discrepancies are discovered, the anti-trojan software module may terminate the communication session between the user's and the site and may further temporarily block the specific user from accessing the system utilizing the credentials that may have been compromised. Additionally, the anti-trojan software module may issue a warning to the user, the site operator and/or the anti-trojan software module provider. Furthermore, the anti-trojan software module may provide the user with remediation instructions for removing the key logger or other Trojan application from his/her computer and may further provide the user with instructions for reinstating his/her access to the system.

[0047] According to further embodiments of the present invention, there may be provided an anti-phishing software module functionally associated with a commercial website, such as embedded in a website's code, adapted to identify attempts to copy the website on a different server in order to masquerade as the legitimate website (a “Phishing” attempt). According to some embodiments of the present invention, the anti-phishing software module may be encrypted into the website's code. The anti-phishing software module may simultaneously and/or separately perform multiple actions designed to identify Phishing attempts including; (i) verifying, every time the web page is loaded, a software element secretly embedded in the website's code or on an associated server, (ii) scanning similar domain names to search for possible imitations, (iii) monitoring new domain name registrations and/or changes of domain name ownership to search for possible imitations, (iv) searching throughout the internet for unique text patterns and graphics associated with the legitimate website, and/or (v) scanning emails to search for possible attempts to masquerade as the commercial entity being protected.

[0048] According to some embodiments of the present invention, the anti-phishing software module may be adapted to transmit to a server associated with the website and/or with the entity responsible for the anti-phishing software module a warning message when the code of the website has been copied and/or instanced on another server. The anti-phishing software module may be integral with one or more codes and/or modules of the website, such as a Javascript, a flash player application or any other application written in any other language. According to further embodiments of the present invention, the anti-phishing software module may, while running on the server and/or the browser, be adapted to check one or more parameters associated with its computational environment in order to determine whether it is communicating with the authentic/genuine website server or another server, unassociated with the authentic/genuine website—likely to be operated someone engaged in a phishing scheme. The anti-phishing software module may attempt to locate one or more specific files, which files may be secretly stored on the authentic/genuine website server, may not be part of the code that is sent to a browser when it navigates to the authentic/genuine website, and may thus be considered secret. The secret file(s) may be in the form of an image or digital certificate. For example, the genuine website may have a very small picture (up to one pixel in size) secretly embedded in a server associated with the website, which picture is not part of the code that is sent to a browser when it navigates to the authentic/genuine website. Therefore, when the website is copied the secret picture will not appear in the copy. The anti-phishing software module may, in this example, be programmed to attempt to locate the secret picture every time the website is uploaded and in the event that the picture cannot be located, presumably because the website is an illegitimate copy and therefore is being uploaded on a different server that does not contain the secret picture, send an alert along with the “fake” website's URL and/or the “different” server's IP address to a server associated with the genuine website and/or a server associated with the entity responsible for the anti-phishing software module.

[0049] According to further embodiments of the present invention, the anti-phishing software module may search the internet for websites containing unique text patterns and graphics associated with the legitimate website, such as the commercial entity's logo, marketing slogans, name, commonly used fonts and phrases and so on. The anti-phishing software module may target websites with domain names similar to the genuine website's domain name and/or monitor new domain name registrations and/or changes of domain name ownership, for more frequent and thorough inspection. All suspicious findings discovered by the anti-phishing software module during searches may be reported to an investigative body, a server associated with the website and/or a server associated with the entity responsible for the anti-phishing software module. The report may prioritize the findings based on the amount of similarity found to the genuine website in each specific instance. For example, a website containing the genuine websites name, logo and the term “username” may be reported with higher importance than a website that only contains the genuine website's name.

[0050] According to yet further embodiments of the present invention, the anti-phishing software module may regularly scan emails to search for possible attempts to masquerade as the commercial entity being protected.

[0051] According to some embodiments of the present invention, the anti-phishing software module and/or the anti-trojan software module may be adapted to remain dormant much of the time and to wakeup intermittently. Whereas according to other embodiments of the present invention, the anti-phishing software module and/or the anti-trojan software module may be active substantially continuously.

[0052] According to some further embodiments of the present invention, the anti-phishing software module, the anti-pharming software module and/or the anti-trojan software module may also report any findings of suspicious activity to an investigative body and may include in the reports information that may assist the investigative body in locating and taking action against the offending party. The anti-phishing software module, the anti-pharming software module and/or the anti-trojan software module may be further adapted to take automatic action to prevent or halt security breach attempts when specific threats are detected.

[0053] According to further embodiments of the present invention, an anti-pharming software module may be functionally associated with a website's code, such as embedded in a website's code. The anti-pharming software module, when instanced in a web browser, may be adapted to detect, report and/or prevent an attempt to intercept data transferred from a user to the website, including authentication data. A given anti-pharming software module may include, be pre-programmed with and/or otherwise have access to one or more parameters (e.g. domain name, IP address, etc) of the website with which the module is associated. When the given module is instanced, it may check and/or compare one or more parameters of the website with which the user's browser is communicating against the one or more parameters of the website with which the module is associated. The module may thus determine whether the user's browser is communicating with the intended website, or whether the browser's communication is being redirected, intercepted or relayed, without the user's knowledge, to pass through a second website, presumably being operated by a third party (e.g. hostile entity), before being transmitted to the genuine website.

[0054] The anti-pharming software module may check, for example, that the domain name which appears in the user's browser is identical to the genuine website's domain name and/or that the IP address associated by the user's browser with the domain name is the genuine website's IP address. The anti-phishing software module may also verify that the protocol being used for communication is a Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS). The anti-phishing software module may further verify the authenticity of the digital certificate being presented to the user's browser by the website with which it is communicating. The anti-phishing software module may further examine the content of the digital certificate to verify that it is actually the genuine website's certificate.

[0055] According to some embodiments of the present invention, the anti-pharming software module, in the event that it detects any discrepancy in the parameters it has checked and/or compared, may be adapted to; (i) terminate the communication; (ii) report the event along with any information relating to the second website, such as the domain name, IP address, etc., to the user, website operator and/or supplier of the anti-pharming software module; and/or (iii) block the specific user from accessing the system utilizing the credentials that may have been compromised.

[0056] According to yet further embodiments of the present invention, an anti-mib (i.e. man in the browser) software module may be functionally associated with a website's code, such as embedded in a website's code. When instanced in a browser, the anti-mib module may request or otherwise receive an encryption key (e.g. a public encryption key) from a source associated with the website. The anti-mib module may use the key for application level encryption of information (e.g. identification and/or authentication information) provided by a user. The application may be a website log in application running on the browser and may be functionally associated or integral with the anti-mib module. The website may use a private key corresponding to the received (public) key to decrypt the user's information. According to further embodiments of the present invention, a different encryption key may be provided to the anti-mib module periodically and/or each time it is instanced. The different encryption key may be received by the anti-mib software module upon being served to or upon instancement on a client browser. Alternatively, the different encryption key may be created by the anti-mib software module upon being served to or upon instancement on a client browser. According to some embodiments of the present invention, the anti-mib module mitigates the risk of another application running within the browser from intercepting, storing and/or forwarding user information.

[0057] It should be understood by one of skill in the art that some of the functions described as being performed by a specific component of the system may be performed by a different component of the system in other embodiments of this invention.

[0058] The present invention can be practiced by employing conventional tools, methodology and components. Accordingly, the details of such tools, component and methodology are not set forth herein in detail. In the previous descriptions, numerous specific details are set forth, in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention. It should be recognized, however, that the present invention might be practiced without resorting to the details specifically set forth.

[0059] Only exemplary embodiments of the present invention and but a few examples of its versatility are shown and described in the present disclosure. It is to be understood that the present invention is capable of use in various other combinations and environments and is capable of changes or modifications within the scope of the inventive concept as expressed herein.

[0060] While certain features of the invention have been illustrated and described herein, many modifications, substitutions, changes, and equivalents will now occur to those skilled in the art. It is, therefore, to be understood that the appended claims are intended to cover all such modifications and changes as fall within the true spirit of the invention.