Selectively specifying account access recovery process based on account activity

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10735396-B2
Application number	US-201816167472-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 22, 2018
Priority date	Jun 7, 2015
Publication date	Aug 4, 2020
Grant date	Aug 4, 2020

Abstract

Some embodiments provide an account-access recovery method that receives a request to recover access to an account. The method also assesses recent usage of a device that is associated with the account. The method also, based on the assessment, selects a recovery process from a group of different recovery processes for regaining access to the account. The method also provides the selected recovery process to a party that is requesting the access recovery.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
receiving a request to recover access to an account;
assessing recent usage of a device that is associated with the account, the recent usage comprising unlock event data for the device;
based on the assessment, selecting a recovery process from a group of different recovery processes for regaining access to the account; and
providing the selected recovery process to a party that is requesting to recover access to the account.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein assessing recent usage comprises
computing an activity metric value to quantify the recent usage of the device and selecting the recovery process comprises correlating the activity metric value to the selected recovery process.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein assessing recent usage comprises:
obtaining the unlock event data for the device, wherein an access control parameter must be provided on the device in order to unlock the device; and
assessing the unlock event data to determine whether the device has been unlocked a requisite number of times during a time period.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the obtained unlock event data comprises a flag that indicates weather the device has been unlocked with a time period before receiving the request to recover access to the account.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the device provides unlock event data periodically about whether the device has been unlocked a requisite number of times during a previous monitoring time period, and the device provided data is stored in a storage from which the unlock event data is subsequently obtained.

6. The method of claim 4 ,
wherein the device stores an account recovery parameter that allows the device to request to recover access to the account through the access control parameter of the device,
wherein the unlock event data is assessed in order to ensure that the device is not readily available to use in the request to recover access to the account.

7. The method of claim 1 ,
wherein each recovery process requires a set of recovery operations to be performed,
wherein two different recovery processes have at least one recovery operation not in common.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein recovery operations of different recovery processes includes one or more of:
answering a set of one or more questions regarding a user of the device, wherein a set of answers to the questions was previously collected;
retrieving a secondary authentication parameter from an email account;
retrieving a secondary authentication parameter from a text message sent to a trusted phone number associated with the user;
providing a security code from a credit card; or
showing a personal identification document to identify the user.

9. The method of claim 7 ,
wherein a first set of recovery operations of a first recovery process comprises answering a first set of questions regarding a user of the device,
wherein a second set of recovery operations of a second more onerous recovery process comprises answering a second set of questions regarding the user of the device,
wherein the second set of questions are more difficult questions than the first set of questions as the second set of questions have less commonly known answers.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the received request comprises at least one of: (1) a request to reset a credential for accessing the account or (2) a request to unlock an account that has been locked and cannot be used.

11. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
assessing recent usage of the account, separately from the assessment of the recent usage of the device associated with the account; and
selecting the recovery process based on the assessment of the recent usage of the account and the assessment of the recent usage of the device associated with the account.

12. A non-transitory machine readable medium storing a program which when executed by at least one processor, causes the at least one processor to process account-access recovery requests, the program comprising sets of instructions for:
receiving a request to recover access to an account;
assessing recent usage of a device that is associated with the account based at least in part on whether the device was unlocked over a recent period of time;
based on the assessment, selecting a recovery process from a group of different recovery processes for regaining access to the account; and
providing the selected recovery process to a party that is requesting to recover access to the account.

13. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 12 , wherein the set of instructions for selecting a recovery process comprises sets of instructions for:
selecting a first recovery process comprising a first recovery operation for a first assessed usage level of the device; and
selecting a second recovery process comprising a second recovery operation for a second assessed usage level of the device,
wherein the first assessed usage level is less than the second assessed usage level, wherein the second recovery operation is more onerous than the first recovery operation.

14. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 12 ,
wherein the device has an access control parameter for unlocking and using the device,
wherein the device stores an account recovery parameter that allows the device to request to recover access to the account,
wherein in response to an account access recovery request, the device (1) provides a prompt to receive the access control parameter, and (2) after receiving the access control parameter in response to the prompt, sends the account recovery parameter to request to recover access to the account,
wherein the set of instructions for providing the selected recovery process comprises a set of instructions for directing the use of the device's access control parameter to request to recover access to the account.

15. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 14 ,
wherein the set of instructions for assessing recent usage of the device comprises a set of instructions for assessing whether the device has been unlocked in a recent time period in order to ensure that the device is not readily available to use to request to recover access to the account.

16. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 12 , wherein the set of instructions for assessing recent usage of the device comprises a set of instructions for assessing the device's use of the account.

17. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 16 , wherein the set of instructions for assessing the device's use of the account comprises a set of instructions for assessing the device's active use of at least one service associated with the account.

18. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 17 ,
wherein the set of instructions for assessing the device's use of the account further
comprises a set of instructions for discounting the device's passive use of at least one service associated with the account,
wherein an active use requires participation by a user, while a passive use does not require participation by the user.

19. A device comprising:
a memory; and
at least one processor configured to:
receive a request to recover access to an account;
assess recent usage of the account over a predetermined time period prior to receipt of the request to recover access to the account;
assess recent usage of a device associated with the account, separately from the assessment of the recent usage of the account;
based on the

Assignees

• Apple Inc

Inventors

• Krstic Ivan
• Wilson James
• Friedman Eric Daniel
• Subramaniam Selvarajan
• Gautier Patrice O
• Gates John Patrick
• Santhanagopal Ramarathnam
• Vaidyanathaswami Prabhakaran
• Mambakkam Sudhakar
• Pai Raghunandan
• Narayanan Karthik

Classifications

• G06F2221/2131

  Lost password, e.g. recovery of lost or forgotten passwords · CPC title

• G06F21/31

  User authentication · CPC title

• H04L63/105

  Multiple levels of security · CPC title

• H04L63/08 Primary

  for authentication of entities (cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication H04L9/32) · CPC title

• H04L63/12

  Applying verification of the received information (cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for data integrity or data verification H04L9/32) · CPC title