Patent ID: 8732473

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving, by a server, a plurality of content claims for a data item, the plurality of content claims for the data item including content claims submitted by a plurality of different issuers that scanned the data item for malicious content, wherein each content claim of the plurality of content claims for the data item identifies an issuer that submitted the content claim, indicates timing and results of a scan performed by the issuer, and is submitted with a digital fingerprint of the data item calculated by the issuer using a hash function; storing, by the server, the plurality of content claims for the data item in a database that associates each content claim of the plurality of content claims for the data item with a digital signature of the data item that was submitted with the content claim; grouping, by the server, multiple content claims of the plurality of content claims for the data item that were submitted by different issuers with a same digital fingerprint of the data item, wherein the same digital fingerprint of the data item was calculated by the different issuers using a particular hash function; receiving, by the server from a computing device, a request to retrieve existing content claims associated with a piece of data, the request including a determined digital fingerprint of the piece of data calculated by the computing device using the particular hash function; retrieving, by the server in response to the request, a content claim set including the multiple content claims of the plurality of content claims for the data item that were submitted by different issuers upon determining that: the determined digital fingerprint of the piece of data matches the same digital fingerprint of the data item associated with each of the multiple content claims, and each of the multiple content claims was issued within a predetermined time period; and returning, by the server to the computing device, the content claim set for allowing the computing device to determine whether to scan the piece of data for malicious content.