Patent ID: 8908864

Claim:
A method for detecting and mitigating address spoofing in a messaging service transaction, the method comprising: at a messaging service firewall separate from a short message service center (SMSC) and implemented on a platform including at least one processing device: receiving a mobility management reply message that is sent by a mobile location register element in response to an associated mobility management query, the mobility management query and the mobility management reply message being associated with a mobility management transaction, the mobility management reply message including a message service recipient identifier and a serving switch identifier; allocating a global title address (GTA) from a pool of global title addresses within a range of global title addresses assigned to the firewall to a correlation record; storing the correlation record indicating a correlation between the allocated GTA and an originating SMSC identifier of the mobility management query; replacing the serving switch identifier in the mobility management reply message with the allocated GTA resulting in a modified mobility management reply message; routing the modified mobility management reply message; receiving a message service message associated with the mobility management transaction, the messaging service message being addressed to the allocated GTA; determining the originating SMSC identifier to which the allocated GTA is correlated; comparing SMSC identifier information extracted from the messaging service message with the originating SMSC identifier to which the allocated GTA is correlated to determine if the messaging service message contains spoofed address information; and in response to determining that the messaging service message contains spoofed address information, discarding the messaging service message.