Methods and systems for protecting website forms from automated access

Abstract

Systems and methods to tell apart computers and humans using image recognition task having a dynamic graphical arrangement of randomly selected images. The images can be arranged as a grid or matrix for presentation on a device display for authentication of a user as human. The kinds of graphical images can be derived from a selected category for the image recognition task. A series of randomly generated access codes corresponding to the images can be displayed with the images. The user may enter the access codes corresponding to images from the selected category. An authentication server can compare the access code entry to an authentication reference code corresponding to the particular arrangement of images. The selection of images, their arrangement and their corresponding access codes, may dynamically change in between verification sessions.

We claim: 
     
         1 . A method in a computing system for providing secure transactions, the method comprising:
 receiving from a client a request to perform a transaction;   creating a transaction verification page comprising information regarding the transaction, the transaction verification page comprising a dynamic graphical arrangement of randomly selected images, the transaction verification page requesting the user to select at least one image from a selected category of images chosen for an image recognition task to commit the transaction;   transmitting the transaction verification page to the client;   receiving an image selection from the client, the image selection being input to the transaction verification page by the user;   in response to the image selection matching the randomly selected image from the selected category, committing the transaction represented by the transaction verification page; and   in response to the image selection not matching the randomly selected image from the selected category, aborting the transaction represented by the transaction verification page.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising maintaining a plurality of user records, each user record comprising an account identifier and a client device identifier, wherein the request to perform a transaction comprises the user's account identifier and client device identifier and identifying the user requesting the transaction from input of the account identifier and receipt of the client device identifier. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the transaction verification page further comprises at least one advertisement having a hyperlink to an advertiser website. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 3  wherein the advertisement comprises at least one of the plurality of randomly selected images from the dynamic graphical arrangement of images. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the dynamic graphical arrangement of randomly selected images comprises a grid of at least four images wherein at least one image is from the selected category. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 5  wherein a first image of the plurality of randomly selected images is from a first selected category and wherein a second image is from a second selected category. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the image selection comprises pointing to and clicking the image from the selected category. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the image selection comprises input of a randomly generated and randomly assigned access code associated with the at least one image from the selected category. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 1  wherein at least two of the plurality of randomly selected images are from the selected category and wherein the image selection comprises input of a first randomly generated and randomly assigned access code associated with a first image from the selected category and a second randomly generated and randomly assigned access code different from the first access code and associated with a second image from the selected category. 
     
     
         10 . A computer system for selectively accepting access requests from an access device connected to a server computer by a network, the computer system comprising:
 a memory and a processor to execute instructions stored in the memory, wherein the memory stores instructions to:   receive an access request from the access device;   generate a dynamic graphical arrangement of randomly selected images in response to the access request, wherein the dynamic graphical arrangement of randomly selected images comprises at least one image from at least one selected category chosen for an image recognition task;   present the dynamic graphical arrangement of images on an output device of the access device;   instruct a user to select each image from the chosen category;   receive an input from the access device, the input comprising user selection of at least one image from the at least one selected category; and   accept the access request if the input from the access device corresponds to the images from the selected category chosen for the image recognition task and otherwise denying the access request.   
     
     
         11 . A method for providing an automated test to tell computers and humans apart comprising:
 receiving a dynamic graphical arrangement of images in response to an access request,   the dynamic graphical arrangement comprising at least one image from a selected image category chosen for an image recognition task and at least one image not from the selected image category, wherein the image recognition task comprises an instruction to select an image corresponding to the selected image category from the dynamic graphical arrangement of images;   receiving the image recognition task;   transmitting an input comprising identification of an image selected by a user; and   receiving an indication that the access request has been granted or denied based on a comparison of the image selected by the user to the at least one image from the selected image category.