Patent ID: 7917593
Filing Date: 2011-03-29
Classification: G06Q

Abstract:
1. A computing system implemented process for employing automatic reply systems to detect e-mail scammer IP addresses comprising: providing one or more decoy e-mail addresses associated with one or more computing systems; receiving a given e-mail at one of the one or more decoy e-mail addresses associated with one or more computing systems; performing an initial analysis of the given e-mail received at one of the one or more decoy e-mail addresses associated with one or more computing systems; as a result of the initial analysis of the given e-mail received at one of the one or more decoy e-mail addresses associated with one or more computing systems, preliminarily determining that the given e-mail received at one of the one or more decoy e-mail addresses associated with one or more computing systems is a given scam e-mail; transforming data indicating a status of the given e-mail received at one of the one or more decoy e-mail addresses associated with one or more computing systems to data indicating a status of scam e-mail; extracting one or more e-mail addresses from the header or body of the given scam e-mail; generating a fabricated reply e-mail to the given scam e-mail, the fabricated reply e-mail to the given scam e-mail including one or more mechanisms for determining at least an IP address of the sender of the given scam e-mail; sending the fabricated reply e-mail to the given scam e-mail to the one or more e-mail addresses extracted from the header or body of the given scam e-mail; capturing at least an IP address of the sender of the given scam e-mail via the one or more mechanisms for determining at least an IP address of the sender of the given scam e-mail sender included in fabricated reply e-mail to the given scam e-mail; and using the captured IP address of the sender of the given scam e-mail to identify future scam emails from the sender of the given scam e-mail.