Method and apparatus for preventing interception of input data to a software application
US7328457B1 · kind B1 · utility
Assignee
Inventor
Key dates
| Filing date | Jun 30, 1999 |
| Grant date | Feb 5, 2008 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Jun 30, 2019 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG06F21/606
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
A method and apparatus facilitates the prevention of interception of incoming data, such as keystroke data in the form of a message to an application, by inserting application generated random insertion data into a message stream. The random insertion data is related to actual data that is being generated for a software application so that it is difficult for an attacker to distinguish between actual message data and inserted message data. The system and method then reads incoming data typically in the form of messages, and filters out the messages that it determines were knowingly inserted. The remaining received messages are determined to be actual data from the data source, such as a keyboard, voice input or other suitable data source. In one embodiment, the system effectively hides actual input data such as actual keystrokes in a stream of randomly generated fake keystrokes.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.