Patent ID: 8185930

Claim:
A system comprising: a communications interface, implemented as part of a system comprising one or more computing devices, operable to receive data associated with a network; a risk assessment module, implemented as part of the system comprising one or more computing devices, operable to parse the data to determine a particular type of sender or recipient activity associated with the data and to identify a sender and a recipient associated with the data based upon an application of a plurality of tests to the data, the risk assessment module being operable to assign a total risk level to the data based upon the sender or recipient and one or more risks associated with the particular type of sender or recipient activity, wherein the total risk level is calculated based upon the one or more risks and a tolerance for each of the one or more risks; a filtering module, implemented as part of the system comprising one or more computing devices, operable to filter the data based upon the total risk level assigned to the data and a maximum total acceptable level of risk, the maximum total acceptable level of risk being indicated by a policy associated with the network; and a control settings interface, implemented as part of the system comprising one or more computing devices, operable to facilitate setting of the policy, the control settings interface including a plurality of orthogonal risk categories associated with various activities, wherein each risk category comprises one or more types of sender or recipient activities.