Patent ID: 7774413
Filing Date: 2010-08-10
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method in an email system for filtering an email message, wherein the email system comprises a computer and a plurality of installed filtering agents, each filtering agent having an identifier that identifies a type of the filtering agent and a version of the filtering agent, the method comprising: receiving by the computer the email message, the email message having a plurality of message hygiene stamps, each of the plurality of message hygiene stamps having an identifier identifying a type of a previous filtering agent that previously filtered the email message, a version of the previous filtering agent, virus signatures scanned by the previous filtering agent, and a result of filtering by the previous filtering agent; determining by the computer whether the email message is received from a trusted source or received from an un-trusted source; responsive to determining that the email message is received from the trusted source, for each of the plurality of install filtering agents, responsive to determining that the email message is received from the un-trusted source, wherein the message hygiene stamps placed on the email message are transported with the email message to an email client and wherein the email client determines the filtering that has been applied to the email message by analyzing the message hygiene stamps.