Patent ID: 11943247
Assignee: OPEN TEXT HOLDINGS, INC.
Field: Digital communication (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H  G | IPC G  H

Claim 10:
11. A system for detecting and mitigating malicious encryption, comprising:
a memory unit of a computing device, the memory unit storing a first item of data; and
a security agent, executed by a processor of a computing device, configured to detect a write operation for the first item of data to the memory unit, and responsive to the detection:
detecting an encryption key in the first item of data based on the application of one or more tests to the first item of data, wherein the plurality of tests includes:
attempting to decode the first item of data and analyzing the decoded data for the presence of predetermined strings or formats associated with an encryption key, and
determining if a numeric representation of the first item of data is a composite number and analyzing the first item of data by attempting at least a partial factorization of the numeric representation; and

responsive to detecting an encryption key in the first item of data based on the application of the one or more tests:
generating an alert indicating a likely malicious encryption attempt, and
taking one or more actions to mitigate the malicious encryption attempt.