Verifying telephone caller origin

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9602662-B2
Application number	US-201514645491-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 12, 2015
Priority date	Mar 20, 2014
Publication date	Mar 21, 2017
Grant date	Mar 21, 2017

Abstract

An aspect includes verifying a telephone caller origin carried out at a security application. The verifying includes activating a security process during an active telephone call to a user received at a first call identifier, accessing registered user service providers to obtain contact details of a registered service provider purporting to be the origin of the active telephone call, and sending a query to the obtained contact details of the registered service provider. The query includes the first call identifier. The verifying also includes receiving a returned query result confirming or denying that the telephone call is from the registered service provider.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method for verifying a telephone caller origin carried out at a security application, comprising:
receiving, by a first telephone device of a first user entity from a second telephone device of a second user entity, a first telephone call;
subsequent to receipt of the first telephone call, receiving, by the first telephone device and from the first user entity, first user input indicative of a desire to mute the first telephone device with respect to the first telephone call;
responsive to the receipt of the user input, muting, by the first telephone device, the first telephone device with respect to the first telephone call while maintaining as active the first telephone call;
subsequent to the muting, receiving, by the first telephone device and from the first user entity, second user input indicative of a request to activate a security process, with the second user input being a verbal statement spoken out loud by the first user into the first telephone device, which verbal statement is indicative of a purported entity that is purportedly making the first telephone call;
in response to receipt of the second user input, activating the security process during the active telephone call received at a device associated with a first call identifier, with the security process including:
fetching, by an application running on the first telephone device, personal registered information associated with a telephone number of the first user, and
sending, by the first telephone device, a query including the personal registered information to a third telephone device belonging to the purported entity;

receiving, by the first telephone device and from the third telephone device, a returned query result confirming that the telephone call is from the purported entity; and
responsive to receiving the returned query result, unmuting the first telephone device with respect to the first telephone call so that the first telephone call can interactively continue.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein receiving a returned query result includes receiving or generating a token providing details of the result in the form of one or more of the group of: a message, a voice, a sound, an image, an automatic un-muting of the active call, and an automatic disconnection of the active call.

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• Dow Barry N
• Johnson Peter J
• Xu Fenglian

Classifications

• H04M3/436 Primary

  Arrangements for screening incoming calls {, i.e. evaluating the characteristics of a call before deciding whether to answer it (based on the calling party profile H04M3/42059; based on location H04M3/42348; based on presence H04M3/42365; diversion H04M3/54)} · CPC title

• H04M3/42059

  Making use of the calling party identifier · CPC title

• H04M3/2281

  Call monitoring, e.g. for law enforcement purposes; Call tracing; Detection or prevention of malicious calls · CPC title

• H04M2203/6027

  Fraud preventions · CPC title

• H04M3/42102

  Making use of the called party identifier · CPC title