Patent ID: 7921456

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving at least one e-mail address from a given user in connection with a request submitted by the given user to access resources of a service provider, the e-mail address corresponding to one of a plurality of email addresses, each email address corresponding to a different third-party e-mail server to which the given user has access, wherein each e-mail address is associated with a different level of trust relative to the other e-mail addresses; sending at least one authentication ticket to a third-party e-mail server corresponding to the at least one e-mail address, the third-party e-mail server being chosen based upon the at least one e-mail address received from the given user, wherein sending the at least one authentication ticket includes: sending a key, a pass code, and an associated predefined time interval with the at least one authentication ticket, wherein the key uniquely identifies the at least one authentication ticket, and wherein the at least one authentication ticket is sent as header-level information to the third-party e-mail server and the third party e-mail server processes authentication tickets sent as header-level information with a high priority as compared to e-mail messages that enable the authentication ticket to be acted upon prior to an end of the associated predefined time interval; and referencing a first field for the identification of the given user and a second field for the identification of the service provider; receiving at least one of an additional key and an additional pass code, from a user device, after sending the at least one authentication ticket to the third-party e-mail server corresponding to the at least one e-mail address; dispositioning the authentication ticket; and dispositioning the request submitted by the user device based upon the disposition of the authentication ticket, wherein dispositioning the authentication request includes approving the authentication ticket when the at least one of the additional key and pass code matches one of the key and the pass code of the at least one authentication ticket sent to the third-party e-mail server.