Methods and apparatus for blocking unwanted software downloads

Abstract

Methods and systems for blocking unwanted software downloads within a network. Such methods may thereby prevent (i) downloads of spyware from one or more identified locations, and/or (ii) certain outbound communications from the network and/or may also permit software downloads only from specified locations. In general, the policies are defined by rules specified by a network administrator or other user.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . An network device comprising:
 a receiver to receive a software file from a public network;   a file type identifier to identify a file type of the software file;   a blocking decision module to determine whether the downloaded software file should be blocked based on the identified file type of the software file; and   a content transformation module configured to removing object tags contained in the downloaded software file, if the downloaded software file is not blocked by the blocking decision module.   
     
     
         2 . A machine-readable medium having stored thereon data representing instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:
 downloading a software file from a public network;   identifying a file type of the downloaded software file; and   determining whether the downloaded software file should be blocked based on the identified file type of the downloaded software file and if the downloaded software file is not blocked, transform the downloaded software file by removing object tags contained in the downloaded software file, and providing the transformed software file to a recipient that requested the downloaded software file.   
     
     
         3 . A method for content transformation comprising:
 downloading a content delivery mechanism from a public network; and   transforming the content delivery mechanism by removing one or more types of tags from the content delivery mechanism.   
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 3 , further comprising determining a category of the source of the content delivery mechanism, wherein transforming the content delivery mechanism is based on the determined category of the source of the content delivery mechanism. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 4 , wherein transforming the content delivery mechanism comprises removing all object tags if the source of the content delivery mechanism is in a suspicious category. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 3 , wherein the content delivery mechanism comprises a Web page. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 3 , wherein the content delivery mechanism comprises an Extensible Markup Language (XML) document. 
     
     
         8 . An network device comprising:
 a receiver to download a content delivery mechanism from a public network; and   a content transformation module to transform the content delivery mechanism by removing one or more types of tags from the content delivery mechanism.   
     
     
         9 . The network device of  claim 8 , further comprising a URL filter to determine a category of the source of the content delivery mechanism , wherein the content transformation module transforms the content delivery mechanism based on the category of the source of the content delivery mechanism as determined by the URL filter. 
     
     
         10 . The network device of  claim 9 , wherein the content transformation module transforms the content delivery mechanism by removing all object tags if the source of the content delivery mechanism is in a suspicious category. 
     
     
         11 . The network device of  claim 8 , wherein the content delivery mechanism comprises a Web page.