Patent ID: 7899873

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving, at a control interface of a messaging system, a control command addressed to a network address of the control interface; determining whether the network address is valid after receiving the control command; adding a source address of the control command to a list of blocked source addresses after a threshold number of invalid control commands have been received from the source address; determining whether the network address has been accessed a predefined number of times; storing a data record invalidating the network address when the network address has been accessed the predefined number of times; authenticating the control command based on an authentication token of the network address; determining, based on the network address, a message of the messaging system to which the control command pertains; determining whether an expiration time of the network address has passed; and sending a messaging system command to the messaging system when the network address has not been accessed the predefined number of times to perform an action with respect to the message based on the control command.