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McAfee gets patent for restricting network access by applications  

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CIOL Bureau
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BANGALORE: McAfee, Inc. announced that the United

States Patent and Trademark Office have granted the company U.S. Patent

7,069,330 entitled "Control of Interaction between Client Computer Applications

and Network Resources."

It covers various structures, programs and processes

for determining whether an application is authorized to access a network or

network resource. This is accomplished by utilizing a policy for facilitating

the decision as to whether an application is authorized or not.






Mark McArdle, co-inventor and senior vice president for consumer products at
McAfee, commented: "The technology covered under this patent is paramount to

desktop security as well as other network related issues. By applying one or

more policies to control the applications attempting to interact with network

resources, administrators may effectively manage network application behavior,

and consumers benefit from protection against rogue applications that may

attempt to send sensitive data across the Internet."






According to a specific example of the patented technology, a network access
request from an application may initially be detected. An application policy

file or field may thus be utilized to determine if such application is

authorized to access the network or network resource. In one of many possible

embodiments, an access flag field may be used which contains data specifying

whether the application is allowed access to the particular network entity.






To this end, access by the application may either be blocked or allowed in the
appropriate manner. In another possible embodiment, determining whether the

application is authorized may optionally be accomplished by comparing an

identifier for the application with identifiers in an application policy file

that correspond to applications authorized for installation on computers coupled

to the network.





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