Identity-based-encryption message management system

Abstract

Systems and methods for managing email are provided. Some of the email may be encrypted using identity-based-encryption (IBE) techniques. When an incoming IBE-encrypted message for a recipient in an organization is received by a gateway at the organization, the gateway may request an IBE private key from an IBE private key generator. The IBE private key generator may generate the requested IBE private key for the gateway. The gateway may use an IBE decryption engine to decrypt the incoming message. The decrypted message can be scanned for viruses and spam and delivered to the recipient. Outgoing email messages can also be processed. If indicated by message attributes or information provided by a message sender, an outgoing message can be encrypted using an IBE encryption engine and the IBE public key of a desired recipient.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method for using a gateway at an organization to process a message that has been sent to a recipient at the organization from a sender over a communications network, wherein the message has been encrypted at the sender using an identity-based-encryption (IBE) public key of the recipient to produce an IBE-encrypted message, the method comprising:
 at the gateway, obtaining an IBE private key for the recipient corresponding to the IBE public key of the recipient;   at the gateway, decrypting the IBE-encrypted message to produce an unencrypted version of the message;   at the gateway, scanning the unencrypted version of the message for viruses to produce a scanned version of the message; and   providing the scanned message from the gateway to the recipient.   
     
     
         2 . The method defined in  claim 1  further comprising:
 processing the unencrypted version of the message at the gateway to determine whether to generate a notification; and 
 if it is determined that a notification is to be generated, using the gateway to generate the notification. 
 
     
     
         3 . The method defined in  claim 1  further comprising:
 processing the unencrypted version of the message at the gateway to determine whether to edit the message; and 
 if it is determined that the message is to be edited, using a message editor at the gateway to edit the message. 
 
     
     
         4 . The method defined in  claim 1  further comprising:
 processing the unencrypted version of the message at the gateway to determine whether to archive the message; and 
 if it is determined that the message is to be archived, using a database controller to save a copy of the message in a database of the organization. 
 
     
     
         5 . The method defined in  claim 1  further comprising:
 processing the unencrypted version of the message at the gateway to determine if the message is spam. 
 
     
     
         6 . The method defined in  claim 1  wherein the organization has an IBE private key generator that communicates with the gateway over a network of the organization, the method further comprising:
 at the gateway, requesting and obtaining the IBE private key for the recipient over the network of the organization, wherein providing the scanned message from the gateway to the recipient comprises providing the scanned message from the gateway to the recipient over the network of the organization.