Patent ID: 8645478

Claim:
A method, comprising: providing a memory component with one or more alternative email entries associated with a plurality of name records representing one or more authorized users of a network; identifying a recipient email address in an outgoing email message from the network if a username of the recipient email address includes an identifiable portion of one of the plurality of name records, wherein the outgoing email message is being sent to the recipient email address from one of a plurality of official email addresses associated with the network, and wherein the identifiable portion of the one of the name records includes at least a first character of a first name and at least the smaller one of a last name and a first five characters of the last name; populating the memory component with a new alternative email entry corresponding to the identified recipient email address; determining whether any of the one or more alternative email entries corresponds to a sender email address in an incoming email message being sent from the sender email address to at least one of the plurality of official email addresses associated with the network; identifying the sender email address if a username of the sender email address includes another identifiable portion of one of the plurality of name records; and tagging the incoming email message with a flag if none of the one or more alternative email entries corresponds to the identified sender email address.