Patent ID: 7523309

Claim:
A method of restricting access to emails of a recipient's email account by providing multiple levels of user authentication such that a user of the recipient's email account is only granted access to view emails for which the user has obtained proper authentication based on a designated security level, said method of restricting access comprising: sending an email, from a sender to the recipient's email account, such that the security level of the email sent by the sender is designated by the sender; receiving the email into the recipient's email account; accessing the recipient's email account at a normal authentication level by entering a normal security level authentication to allow the user of the recipient's email account to only view emails that are designated as having a normal security level; stepping up the authentication level of the user of the recipient's email account by entering, when prompted, a high security level authentication to allow the user of the recipient's email account to view emails designated as having a high security level and view the emails designated as having the normal security level, wherein, if the user of the recipient's email account is prompted to step-up the authentication level and the user decides not to enter any authentication, then the user will not be granted permission to view any email designated as a high security level email, wherein, if the user of the recipient's email account is prompted to step-up the authentication level and the user enters an incorrect authentication, then the user will not be granted permission to view any email designated as a high security level email, wherein a properly authenticated user has the ability to designate any email as being one of a high security level email and a normal security level email, and wherein a properly authenticated user has the ability to determine whether or not an existence of an email designated as a high security level email is to be hidden from the user of the recipient's email account.