Patent ID: 9531752
Filing Date: 2016-12-27
CPC Classification: G06F,H04L

Claim Text:
1. A method for preventing sources of content that are accessible over a network from installing spyware or other undesired items into a user environment, the method comprising: producing a virtual machine on a computing device and installing an operating system on the virtual machine to create a virtual machine environment configured to test a potential source of content accessible on the network, to determine if the potential source of content attempts to install spyware; automatically loading the content from the potential source of content within the virtual machine environment; determining whether or not the potential source of content has at least attempted to install spyware in the virtual machine environment, by— communicating results of the determining whether or not the potential source of content has at least attempted to install spyware in the virtual machine environment, the results indicating either that the potential source of content has not at least attempted to install spyware in the virtual machine environment or that the potential source of content has at least attempted to install spyware in the virtual machine environment; wherein producing the virtual machine, automatically loading the content, and determining whether or not the potential source of content has at least attempted to install spyware are each performed by a spyproxy module executing on a machine remote from a machine executing at least part of the user environment, wherein the machine remote from the machine executing at least part of the user environment comprises at least one of a web-server, an internet service provider, a firewall server, a third-party service provider, or any combination thereof.