Patent ID: 7640361

Claim:
A method carried out by a computer when executing computer readable program code, the method comprising: receiving a certain electronic file intended for delivery from a sender to an intended recipient, the certain electronic file having a first file format having a first file extension and containing a computer virus; and prior to the certain electronic file being made available for viewing by the intended recipient, converting the certain electronic file to a second file format having a second file extension that is different from the first file extension of the first file format and that prevents the computer virus from executing when the converted electronic file is opened by the intended recipient; wherein it is determined whether the certain electronic file represents at least a potential risk to security of a computer system, said converting the certain electronic file being in response to a determination that the certain electronic file represents at least the potential risk to the security of the computer system; wherein it is determined when the first file format is one of a word processing file format type and a graphics file format type, the second file format being at least one of a TXT file format, a RTF file format without embedded objects, and a HTML file format without scripts in response to it being determined that the first file format is the word processing file format type, the second file format being at least one of a JPB file format, a BMP file format, a GIF file format, a HTML file format without scripts, and a JPEG file format in response to it being determined that the first file format is the graphics file format type.