System and method for preventing identity theft or misuse by restricting access

What is this patent about?

’716 is related to the field of data security and automated content inspection. In large enterprise environments, particularly within the financial services sector, sensitive information such as personally identifiable information (PII) and credit card numbers is often scattered across vast databases in unstructured formats. Traditional security measures frequently fail to identify these high-risk files, leaving them vulnerable to identity theft or unauthorized internal access. The background context emphasizes the difficulty of manually auditing massive volumes of data to ensure compliance with privacy regulations.

The underlying idea behind ’716 is a multi-stage filtering process that combines statistical analysis with algorithmic verification to pinpoint sensitive data. Rather than relying solely on simple keyword matches, the invention utilizes pattern density to distinguish between incidental mentions and files that likely contain bulk sensitive records. By calculating the frequency of specific alphanumeric strings—such as those resembling credit card or bank account numbers—relative to the file size, the system can prioritize high-probability targets for deeper inspection.

The claims of ’716 focus on a specific sequence of identification and remediation steps that include scanning for alphanumeric strings, calculating a check digit (such as a Luhn algorithm result) to validate the authenticity of the discovered data, and automatically relocating identified files to a secure location. The independent claims specifically cover the use of these validation techniques to confirm that a numeric string is a genuine financial account number rather than a random sequence, followed by the application of granular access controls or encryption to the validated 'special files.'

In practice, the system functions as an automated gatekeeper that monitors the creation and storage of data across a network. Once a file is flagged for high pattern density and passes the check digit validation, the system can trigger a variety of protective actions, such as privilege masking or the execution of site-specific commands to gather evidence of unauthorized access attempts. This allows the enterprise to maintain a dynamic security posture where protection is applied based on the actual content of the file rather than just its metadata or storage directory.

This approach differentiates itself from prior art by reducing the 'alarm rate' through its two-tier verification strategy. While older systems might flag any document containing a 16-digit number, this invention uses the statistical likelihood of genuine data presence to minimize false positives. Furthermore, by integrating content-aware triggers with active network responses—such as revoking identifiers upon file closure or attaching crypt checksums to prevent covert code execution—the system provides a more robust defense against both external breaches and internal misuse.