Patent ID: 8732831

Claim:
A method for determining the legitimacy of a software application provided to a user of a computing device, the method comprising using at least one data processing device: programmatically detecting that the software application is resident on the computing device; extracting visual user interface characteristics from at least one of an executable file and data files associated with the software application; collecting and storing the visual user interface characteristics of the software application in a memory; programmatically comparing the collected visual user interface characteristics to known visual user interface characteristics of at least one known legitimate software application; when a similarity between the collected visual user interface characteristics and the known visual user interface characteristics surpasses a predefined similarity threshold, analyzing at least one additional characteristic of the software application, wherein the at least one additional characteristic comprises at least one of a digital signature, a source location and a binary signature; and terminating the software application and quarantining the files associated with the software application for subsequent deletion from the computing device when the at least one additional characteristic is indicative of rogue software.