KR100960275B1 - Method for transmitting service of e-mail having authenticating function of receiver - Google Patents

Abstract

Disclosed are a method and an apparatus for sending an e-mail having a recipient authentication function. According to an aspect of the present invention, when receiving a sending command of a secure mail with a telephone number and a recipient mail address, storing the secure mail and the telephone number; Receiving a request for confirmation of a secure mail from a receiver terminal; Transmitting a message including an authentication number to a phone number; And determining whether the authentication information received from the receiver terminal matches the authentication number, and if there is a match, providing a secure mail. According to the present invention, after the recipient is authenticated, the outgoing mail contents and / or attachments can be provided to the recipient, thereby preventing the mail from being leaked to anyone other than the original recipient.

Mail, recipient verification, verification number, phone number

Description

Method and apparatus for sending e-mail with recipient authentication function TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates to a mail transmission service, and more particularly, to an email transmission service method and apparatus equipped with a recipient authentication function.

In general, an email that transmits a predetermined text file through the Internet can be transmitted within a short time, and can be sent with various types of files in addition to the text, and its use is generalized according to convenience of use. The e-mail transmission system for transmitting and receiving such e-mails uses an e-mail server that allows a user to access the Internet using a personal computer, for example, a personal computer. After connecting, you can read the email stored in the server's memory or send the email to another email server.

Since the mail transmission service can attach and transmit various types of files together as described above, it also has the disadvantage of easily leaking information requiring security. This disadvantage can be a serious problem for businesses.

In addition, recently, there have been cases where ID and password are hacked in the portal server, and when the ID and password for accessing the mail server provided by a specific site are leaked, a message other than the owner of the recipient's mail account is received. It can be checked and used, and there are a lot of problems such as security and privacy violations.

Accordingly, the present invention has been made to solve the above-described problems, and provides an email transmission service method and apparatus that can enhance the security of the mail by providing the contents and attachments of the outgoing mail to the receiver in accordance with the authentication result of the recipient It is to provide.

Other objects of the present invention will become more apparent through the preferred embodiments described below.

According to one aspect of the invention, (a) when receiving a transmission command of the security mail is entered the telephone number and the recipient mail address, storing the secure mail and the telephone number; (b) receiving a request for confirmation of the secure mail from a receiver terminal; (c) transmitting a message including an authentication number to the telephone number; And (d) determining whether the authentication information received from the receiver terminal matches the authentication number, and if there is a match, providing the secure mail. There is provided a recording medium having recorded thereon a program for executing the program.

Here, step (c) may include providing an authentication page to the receiver terminal; Receiving a request for the authentication number from the receiver terminal; And generating and transmitting a message including the authentication number to the phone number.

In addition, the step (a) may include transmitting a message including the access address information of the authentication page for confirming the secure mail to the telephone number.

In addition, the receiver terminal may request confirmation of the secure mail by requesting the authentication page using the access address information.

In addition, the step (a) may include the step of providing the access address information of the authentication page for confirming the secure mail to the user terminal that inputs the command to send the secure mail.

In addition, when authentication fails because the authentication information input from the receiver terminal does not match the authentication number, the mail transmission failure to the user terminal of the user who inputs the security mail sending command or the mobile communication terminal corresponding to the user fails. Messages can be sent.

According to another aspect of the present invention, a mail server for providing an email transmission service, the storage unit for storing the secure mail and the telephone number when receiving a sending command of the secure mail is entered the telephone number and the recipient mail address ; A message sending unit for transmitting a message including an authentication number to the telephone number when receiving a request for confirmation of the secure mail from a receiver terminal; And an authentication processing unit for determining whether the authentication information received from the receiver terminal matches the authentication number, and when the authentication information is identical with the authentication number, providing the secure mail. Provided is a secure mail server.

The message generating unit may further include a message generating unit generating a message including access address information of an authentication page for confirming the secure mail, wherein the message generated by the message generating unit is transmitted to the phone number by the message sending unit. Can be transmitted to the mobile communication terminal.

E-mail transmission service method and apparatus equipped with a recipient authentication function according to the present invention, after authenticating the recipient by providing the outgoing mail content and / or attachments to the recipient, it is possible to prevent the outgoing mail to other than the original recipient Can be.

In addition, according to the present invention by using a mobile communication terminal possessed by the majority of the method to provide an e-mail transmission service method and apparatus provided with a receiver authentication function that can provide convenience according to the receiver authentication and guarantee the stability of the authentication Can be provided.

As the invention allows for various changes and numerous embodiments, particular embodiments will be illustrated in the drawings and described in detail in the written description. However, this is not intended to limit the present invention to specific embodiments, it should be understood to include all modifications, equivalents, and substitutes included in the spirit and scope of the present invention.

Terms including ordinal numbers such as first and second may be used to describe various components, but the components are not limited by the terms. The terms are used only for the purpose of distinguishing one component from another. For example, without departing from the scope of the present invention, the first component may be referred to as the second component, and similarly, the second component may also be referred to as the first component. And / or < / RTI > includes any combination of a plurality of related listed items or any of a plurality of related listed items.

When a component is referred to as being "connected" or "connected" to another component, it may be directly connected to or connected to that other component, but it may be understood that other components may be present in between. Should be. On the other hand, when a component is said to be "directly connected" or "directly connected" to another component, it should be understood that there is no other component in between.

The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular example embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the present invention. Singular expressions include plural expressions unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. In this application, the terms "comprise" or "have" are intended to indicate that there is a feature, number, step, operation, component, part, or combination thereof described in the specification, and one or more other features. It is to be understood that the present invention does not exclude the possibility of the presence or the addition of numbers, steps, operations, components, components, or a combination thereof.

Unless defined otherwise, all terms used herein, including technical or scientific terms, have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. Terms such as those defined in the commonly used dictionaries should be construed as having meanings consistent with the meanings in the context of the related art and shall not be construed in ideal or excessively formal meanings unless expressly defined in this application. Do not.

Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings, and in describing the present invention with reference to the accompanying drawings, the same or corresponding elements are denoted by the same reference numerals regardless of the reference numerals, and duplicates thereof. The description will be omitted.

1 is a schematic diagram showing an overall system for an email transmission service with a recipient authentication function according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 1, the entire system according to the present embodiment includes a secure mail server 50, a sender terminal 10, a receiver mail server 40, a receiver terminal 20, and a receiver mobile communication terminal 30. .

The sender terminal 10 and the receiver terminal 20 are equally applicable to all terminals capable of communication through a network, such as personal digital assistants (PDAs) and mobile communication terminals, as well as computer devices as shown in the drawings. Can be.

In the secure mail server 50 according to the present embodiment, in providing a mail transmission service to registered users, the security mail server 50 sets a security function to send mail and authenticates a recipient to receive the mail. It only functions to provide mail content.

The secure mail server 50 transmits the authentication number to the telephone number input by the sender (ie, the telephone number of the receiver's mobile terminal (for example, a mobile phone)) as an authentication method of the receiver, and is input from the receiver. The authentication process is performed by comparing the authentication number with information for authentication (hereinafter referred to as "authentication information"). That is, the secure mail server 50 transmits the authentication number to the receiver mobile communication terminal 30 designated by the sender, and delivers the outgoing mail only when the authentication number is input from the receiver.

The recipient mail server 40 is a mail server of the recipient, and may be, for example, a mail server provided by a portal site such as naver.com, yahoo.co.kr, or a general web mail server. Since a mail server providing a mail transmission / reception function will be apparent to those skilled in the art, a detailed description thereof will be omitted.

According to an embodiment, when the secure mail server 50 receives a request for sending a secure mail including the recipient's telephone number from the sender, the secure mail server 50 transmits mail information indicating the arrival of the secure mail to the recipient mail server 40, and then Upon receiving a request for providing the corresponding security mail from the receiver terminal 20, the authentication number is transmitted to the phone number of the receiver (i.e., the mobile communication terminal of the receiver) and the recipient is authenticated. )

That is, the receiver can check the arrival of the outgoing mail transmitted from the sender by accessing the receiver mail server 40 through the network using the receiver terminal 20 of the receiver. After using the secure mail server 50 for authentication processing, the outgoing mail can be provided from the secure mail server 50.

The mail information received by the recipient mail server 40 includes access address information (eg, a URL (Uniform Resource Locator), etc.) for requesting confirmation of a secure mail. The access address information may be address information of the secure mail server 50 in which the secure mail is stored, or may be address information of an authentication page for downloading the secure mail. That is, when the access address information is the address information where the security mail is stored, when the receiver clicks the access address information using the receiver terminal 20, the receiver accesses the secure mail server 50 to request confirmation of the security mail. The event occurs, the secure mail server 50 may activate the page for the recipient authentication to provide the corresponding secure mail to the recipient after the recipient authentication. On the other hand, when the access address information points to the authentication page, when the recipient clicks the access address information using the receiver terminal 20, the authentication page is activated. If the recipient authentication is successful, the secure mail connected to the authentication page is sent to the recipient. This is how it is provided. In the second case, an authentication page with different access address information is generated for each secure mail. In the first case, an authentication page is generated only when access address information points to a secure mail. For example, Active x format). Hereinafter, for convenience of explanation, it will be described on the assumption that the access address information has address information on the authentication page as in the second method, and each authentication page has a secure mail connected thereto.

According to another embodiment of the method for delivering the mail information on the outgoing mail to the recipient mail server 40, the secure mail server 50 receives a request for sending a secure mail including the recipient's telephone number from the sender. To generate a message including the access address information for the authentication page to check the secure mail, and transmits to the recipient mobile communication terminal 30 according to the phone number. Therefore, the receiver can confirm the arrival of the secure mail through his mobile terminal, and immediately request the secure mail server 50 to provide the secure mail by using the access address information to verify the contents of the secure mail after the authentication process. You can check it.

Here, of course, the access address information may also be provided to the sender. Therefore, the sender can inform the recipient of the access address information by using a messenger program such as MSN Messenger, so that the receiver can easily check the secure mail. The method of delivering the access address information to the caller may be provided to the caller terminal 10 as soon as the access address information is generated when the security mail is requested to be sent, or the phone number of the caller's mobile terminal is stored in advance as the member information. If so, it may be provided to the corresponding mobile communication terminal.

Hereinafter, a description will be given of the process of providing an email transmission service with a recipient authentication function according to the present invention.

2 is a flowchart schematically illustrating a process of providing a secure mail transmission service of a secure mail server according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIGS. 3 to 4 are provided with a receiver authentication function according to each embodiment of the present invention. It is a flowchart which shows the process of providing a mail transmission service.

Referring to FIG. 2, when a secure mail server 50 receives a secure mail transmission request including contents of a mail message, recipient phone number information, etc. from a member user (S210), information about the corresponding phone number information and secure mail ( Message and / or attachments, etc.) (S220). Here, the secure mail server 50 generates and stores the authentication page and the access address information of the authentication page for the security mail as described above.

The secure mail server 50 delivers the mail information on the secure mail requested to be sent to the receiver (S230). As described above, the mail information may be delivered to the recipient mail server 40 corresponding to the recipient, or the short message service (SMS) and the multimedia message service (MMS) to the recipient mobile communication terminal 30. The message may be transmitted using a message transmission service such as a message service.

Thereafter, the receiver may request the confirmation of the secure mail to the secure mail server 50 using the mail information on the secure mail received from the own mail server or the message received from the mobile communication terminal. Therefore, when the secure mail server 50 receives a confirmation request of the secure mail from the receiver (S240), the secure mail server 50 performs mobile communication terminal authentication using previously stored phone number information (S250). That is, after the authentication number is transmitted to the mobile communication terminal (receiver mobile communication terminal 30) according to the phone number information, the authentication information is obtained from the receiver who requested the confirmation of the secure mail, and the authentication number is compared with the authentication information. Authentication can be done through

The secure mail server 50 recognizes whether authentication has been properly processed (S260), and if the authentication is successful, provides the contents (message content and / or attachments, etc.) of the corresponding secure mail to the receiver terminal 20.

If the authentication fails, the contents of the secure mail are not provided to the recipient. In addition, when the recipient authentication fails, the secure mail server 50 may notify the sender that delivery of the secure mail has failed. Of course, since there may be a mistake in the authentication number input of the receiver, authentication may be attempted multiple times.

Hereinafter, the security mail transmission service process in the entire system will be described.

Referring to FIG. 3 according to an embodiment, the sender composes a mail using the sender terminal 10 (S310), and requests the secure mail server 50 to send the secure mail while providing the recipient's telephone number information. (S315).

The secure mail server 50 stores the secure mail and the telephone number information requested to be sent (S320). Here, referring to FIG. 4 according to another embodiment, as described above, the secure mail server 50 generates and stores an authentication page associated with address information storing the secure mail, and stores access address information of the corresponding authentication page. It may be provided to the sender and / or receiver (S410). That is, the recipient can check the reception of the secure mail through his mobile terminal without having to check his or her recipient mail server 40 separately and request the secure mail to the secure mail server 50 using the access address information. It may be (S420).

Referring back to FIG. 3 together with FIG. 4, the secure mail server 50 transmits outgoing mail information on the secure mail requested to be sent to the recipient mail server 40 (S325). As the outgoing mail information, basic information (sender name or ID, send date, mail subject, etc.) of the sent mail and the contact address information (access address information to the above authentication page) are not displayed externally, but are linked to the mail subject. May be). The recipient mail server 40 stores the received outgoing mail information as a received mail of the corresponding recipient (S330).

The receiver accesses the recipient mail server 40 using the receiver terminal 20 and checks the outgoing mail information on the secure mail sent from the sender (S335), and uses the access address information included in the outgoing mail information to secure the mail. The server 50 requests confirmation of the secure mail (S340).

When the secure mail server 50 provides the authentication page to the receiver terminal 20 (S345, S430), the receiver forwards the authentication request to the secure mail server 50 (S350, S440). For example, a button for requesting authentication may be displayed on the authentication page, and the receiver may perform the authentication request by clicking the corresponding button.

The secure mail server 50 generates an authentication number for authenticating the recipient (of course, the authentication number may be generated as soon as the secure mail sending request is received), and the recipient mobile communication terminal ( 30) to send the authentication number (S355, S450).

The receiver checks the authentication number received at his mobile communication terminal (ie, the receiver mobile communication terminal 30) and provides the authentication number to the secure mail server 50 as the authentication information (S360, S460).

Receiving the authentication information, the secure mail server 50 determines whether or not the previously generated authentication number and authentication information match (S365, S470), and if it matches, provides the stored security mail to the receiver terminal 20 (S370). , S490), and notifies the caller terminal 10 of the successful transmission (S375).

If authentication fails, the secure mail server 50 may transmit an error message not allowing the provision of the secure mail to the receiver terminal 20 (S380 and S480), and notify the sender terminal 10 of the transmission failure. There is (S385).

5 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a secure mail server according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 5, the secure mail server 50 according to the present embodiment includes a storage unit 510, a message sending unit 530, and a control unit 550. The control unit 550 may include an authentication processing unit 552, The access information generator 554 and the message generator 556 are included. Here, each component of the controller 550 does not necessarily need to be implemented in hardware, of course, but may be implemented in software such as a program.

The storage unit 510 stores the security mail requested from the sender, and also stores the member information (eg, ID / password, member's mobile terminal number, etc.) of registered users such as the sender.

The message sending unit 530 functions to transmit a message including an authentication number for authenticating the receiver to the receiver mobile communication terminal 30 through the mobile communication network. In addition to the transmission of the authentication number, the message sending unit 530 transmits the access address information for access to the corresponding secure mail or authentication page to the receiver mobile communication terminal 30.

The control unit 550 stores the sender's security mail, and after performing the receiver authentication according to the request from the receiver, if the authentication is successful, the storage unit 510 and sending the message so that the security mail can be delivered to the receiver. The unit 530 is controlled.

The authentication processing unit 552 of the control unit 550 functions to process the receiver authentication by the authentication method using the mobile communication terminal as described above. That is, the authentication processing unit 552 compares the authentication information received from the receiver with the authentication number previously generated and sent, and performs authentication processing.

The access information generating unit 554 functions to generate access address information of the authentication page connected to the security mail requested to be sent from the sender, and the message generating unit 556 includes the authentication number generated by the authentication processing unit 552. It functions to generate a message and the generated message is provided to the receiver mobile communication terminal 30 by the message sending unit 530. In addition, as described above, the message generator 556 generates a message including access address information generated by the access information generator 554, and the generated message is transmitted to the sender and / or the receiver.

The method of the present invention as described above may be implemented in a program and stored in a computer-readable recording medium (CD-ROM, RAM, ROM, floppy disk, hard disk, magneto-optical disk, etc.).

The present invention is not limited to the above embodiments, and many variations are possible by those skilled in the art within the spirit of the present invention.

1 is a schematic diagram showing an overall system for an email transmission service equipped with a recipient authentication function according to an embodiment of the present invention.

2 is a flowchart schematically illustrating a process of providing a secure mail transmission service of a secure mail server according to an embodiment of the present invention.

3 to 4 are flowcharts illustrating a process of providing a mail transmission service with a receiver authentication function according to an embodiment of the present invention.

5 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a secure mail server according to an embodiment of the present invention.

<Description of the symbols for the main parts of the drawings>

10: caller terminal

20: receiver terminal

30: receiver mobile communication terminal

40: recipient mail server

50: secure mail server

Claims (9)

In a mail server combined with a communication network to provide an e-mail transmission service, (a) when receiving a command for sending a secure mail in which a mail address and a phone number of a receiver are input from a user terminal connected through a communication network, storing the secure mail and the phone number in a storage medium provided with the mail address and corresponding to the mail address. Providing access address information for the secure mail to a recipient mail server; (b) receiving a request for confirmation of the secure mail using the access address information from a receiver terminal; (c) providing an authentication page to the receiver terminal and generating and transmitting a message including the authentication number to a receiver mobile communication terminal corresponding to the telephone number when receiving a request for an authentication number from the receiver terminal; And (d) determining whether the authentication information inputted from the receiver terminal matches the authentication number, and if there is a match, providing the secure mail to the receiver terminal. . delete The method of claim 1, The step (a) comprises the step of transmitting the message containing the access address information to the recipient mobile communication terminal according to the phone number, characterized in that the email transmission service method with a receiver authentication function. delete The method of claim 1, And providing the access address information to the user terminal. The method of claim 1, If authentication fails because the authentication information input from the receiver terminal does not match with the authentication number, a message indicating a failure to send mail to the user terminal of the user who inputs the security mail sending command or the mobile communication terminal corresponding to the user; E-mail transmission service method comprising a recipient authentication function, characterized in that for transmitting. A computer-readable recording medium having recorded thereon a program for performing the method according to any one of claims 1, 3, 5 or 6. A mail server coupled with a communication network to provide an email transmission service, A storage unit for storing the secure mail and the phone number when a sending command for a secure mail having a mail address and a phone number is input as recipient information from a user terminal connected through a communication network; A message generator for generating a message including access address information of a page for confirming the secure mail; When the message is sent to the recipient mail server according to the mail address, and a request for confirmation of the secure mail is received from the receiver terminal, an authentication page is provided to the receiver terminal, and when a request for an authentication number is received from the receiver terminal, A sending unit for generating and transmitting a message including the authentication number to a receiver mobile communication terminal corresponding to the telephone number; And An authentication processing unit for determining whether the authentication information received from the receiver terminal matches the authentication number, And if the authentication information and the authentication number match, the secure mail stored in the storage unit is provided to the receiver terminal. The method of claim 8, And the message generated by the message generator is provided to the receiver mobile communication terminal.

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