Systems and methods for anomaly detection in patterns of monitored communications


United States Patent		7124438
Judge , ; et al.		October 17, 2006

	*Title*

Systems and methods for anomaly detection in patterns of monitored communications

	*Abstract*

The present invention is directed to systems and methods for enhancing electronic communication security. A communication transmitted over a communications network is received and tested by a collection engine to generate data associated with the received communication. An analysis engine analyzes the data generated by the collection engine along with data associated with previously received communications to whether an anomaly exists. If an anomaly exists with respect to the received communication, an action engine initiates a predetermined response.



Inventors:	Judge; Paul (Smyrna, GA), Rajan; Guru (Duluth, GA)
Assignee:	CipherTrust, Inc. (Alpharetta, GA)
Appl. No.:	10/094,266
Filed:	March 8, 2002

Current U.S. Class:			726/22 726/23 726/24
Current International Class:			G06F 11/00 (20060101)
Field of Search:			726/1-4,6-7,11,23-30 713/150,155,164,168,187-188 709/200,220,223-225,229

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Primary Examiner:	Song; Hosuk
Attorney, Agent or Firm:	Fish & Richardson P.C.


	*Claims*

What is claimed is: 1. A system for detecting an anomalous communication transmitted over a communications network, the system comprising: a) an interface coupling the system with the communications network; b) a system data store capable of storing data associated with communications transmitted over the communications network and information associated with one or more responses to be initiated if an anomaly is detected; c) a system processor in communication with the interface and the data store, wherein the system processor comprises one or more processing elements and wherein the system processor executes: i) a collection engine that: 1) receives a communication via the interface; and 2) generates data associated with the received communication by applying one or more tests to the received communication; ii) an analysis engine that detects whether an anomaly exists with respect to the received communication based upon the data generated by the collection engine and data associated with previously received communications from the system data store; and iii) an action engine that initiates a predetermined response from the system data store if an anomaly was detected by the analysis engine; wherein the analysis engine detects whether an anomaly exists by: 1) determining a set of anomaly types of interest; 2) for each of the anomaly types of interest in the determined set, (a) acquiring one or more anomaly thresholds associated with the respective anomaly type based at least in part upon accumulated data associated with received communications from the system data store; (b) comparing information in the stored risk profile against at least one of the acquired one or more anomaly thresholds; and (c) determining whether an anomaly of the respective anomaly type exists with respect to the received communication based upon the comparison. 2. The system of claim 1, wherein the received communication comprises an e-mail communication, an HTTP communication, an FTP communication, a WAIS communication, a telnet communication or a Gopher communication. 3. The system of claim 2, wherein the received communication is an e-mail communication. 4. The system of claim 1, wherein each of the one or more tests applied by the collection engine comprises intrusion detection, virus detection, spam detection or policy violation detection. 5. The system of claim 1, wherein the collection engine applies a plurality of tests. 6. The system of claim 5, wherein the collection engine applies each of the plurality of tests in a parallel fashion. 7. The system of claim 5, wherein the collection engine applies each of the plurality of tests in a sequential fashion. 8. The system of claim 1, wherein the system data store stores configuration information and wherein the collection engine applies each of the one or more tests based upon configuration information stored in the system data store. 9. The system of claim 1, wherein the analysis engine detects whether an anomaly exists further based upon configuration information stored in the system data store. 10. The system of claim 9, wherein the configuration information comprises anomaly types, anomaly threshold information, anomaly time period information or anomaly response information. 11. The system of claim 1, wherein the analysis engine further derives one or more anomaly thresholds from the accumulated data associated with received communications in the system data store and wherein the analysis engine detects whether an anomaly exists further based upon the derived one or more anomaly thresholds. 12. The system of claim 1, wherein the system data store stores configuration information and wherein the analysis engine determines the set of anomaly types of interest by reading configuration information from the system data store. 13. The system of claim 1, wherein the analysis engine determines the set of anomaly types of interest based upon the received communication. 14. The system of claim 1, wherein the analysis engine acquires at least one of the one or more anomaly thresholds by deriving the at least one anomaly threshold from the accumulated data associated with previously received communications. 15. The system of claim 14, wherein the derivation of the at least one anomaly threshold is further based upon a predetermined time period. 16. The system of claim 1, wherein the system data store stores configuration information and wherein the analysis engine acquires at least one of the one or more anomaly threshold by reading configuration information from the system data store. 17. The system of claim 1, wherein the action engine's initiated predetermined response is based upon an anomaly type associated with an anomaly detected by the analysis engine. 18. The system of claim 1, wherein the action engine's initiated predetermined response comprises conveying a notification to an administrator, refusing acceptance of further communications from the source of the received communication, quarantine of the received communication, stripping the received communication of identified content, or throttling excessive numbers of incoming connections per second to manageable levels. 19. The system of claim 18, wherein the action engine's initiated predetermined response comprises conveying a notification to an administrator and wherein the notification comprises an e-mail message, a page, a facsimile, an telephone call, an SMS message, a WAP alert or SMNP alert. 20. The system of claim 1, wherein the system processor further aggregates the data generated by the collection engine with the accumulated data associated with previously received communications and stores aggregated accumulated data in the system data store. 21. The system of claim 1, wherein the system processor further provides an interface via which an administrator enters configuration information, receives configuration information from the interface and stores the received configuration information in the system data store. 22. The system of claim 21, wherein the collection engine applies the one or more tests based upon the stored configuration information. 23. The system of claim 21, wherein the analysis engine detects whether an anomaly exists based upon the stored configuration information. 24. The system of claim 23, wherein the stored configuration information comprises anomaly types, anomaly threshold information, anomaly time period information or anomaly response information. 25. The system of claim 21, wherein the system processor provides the interface to the administrator via a Web server, an e-mail server, a automated voice recognition system or an SMS message server. 26. The system of claim 21, wherein the system processor further populates the interface with default values prior to providing it to the administrator. 27. A method for detecting an anomalous communication transmitted over a communication network, the method comprising the steps of: a) receiving a communication transmitted over a communication network; b) applying one or more tests to the received communication to generate data associated with the received communication; c) acquiring data associated with one or more previously received communications; d) detecting whether an anomaly exists with respect to the received communication based upon the generated data and acquired data; and e) initiating a predetermined response if an anomaly was detected, wherein the step of detecting whether an anomaly exists comprises: i) determining a set of anomaly types of interest; ii) for each of the anomaly types of interest in the determined set, 1) acquiring one or more anomaly thresholds associated with the respective anomaly type based at least in part upon the acquired data associated with one or more previously received communications; 2) comparing information in the stored risk profile against at least one of the acquired one or more anomaly thresholds; and 3) determining whether an anomaly of the respective anomaly type exists with respect to the received communication based upon the comparison. 28. The method of claim 27, wherein the received communication comprises an e-mail communication, an HTTP communication, an FTP communication, a WAIS communication, a telnet communication or a Gopher communication. 29. The method of claim 28, wherein the received communication is an e-mail communication. 30. The method of claim 27, wherein each of the one or more tests applied by the collection engine comprises intrusion detection, virus detection, spam detection or policy violation detection. 31. The method of claim 27, wherein the step of applying one or more tests comprises applying a plurality of tests. 32. The method of claim 27, and further comprising the step of deriving one or more anomaly thresholds from the acquired data and wherein the step of detecting whether an anomaly exists further bases detecting whether an anomaly exists upon the derived one or more anomaly thresholds. 33. The method of claim 27, wherein the step of determining a set of anomaly types of interest comprises reading a configuration file. 34. The method of claim 27, wherein the step of determining a set of anomaly types of interest determines the set based upon the received communication. 35. The method of claim 27, wherein the step of acquiring one or more anomaly thresholds comprises the step of deriving at least one anomaly threshold from the acquired data associated with one or more previously received communications. 36. The method of claim 27, wherein the initiated predetermined response is based upon an anomaly type associated with a detected anomaly. 37. The method of claim 27, wherein the initiated predetermined response comprises conveying a notification to an administrator, refusing acceptance of further communications from the source of the received communication, quarantine of the received communication, stripping the received communication of identified content, or throttling excessive numbers of incoming connections per second to manageable levels. 38. The method of claim 37, wherein the initiated predetermined response comprises conveying a notification to an administrator and wherein the notification comprises an e-mail message, a page, a facsimile, an telephone call, an SMS message, a WAP alert or SMNP alert. 39. Computer readable storage media storing instructions that upon execution by a system processor cause the system processor to detect an anomalous communication transmitted over a communication network, the media having stored instruction that cause the system processor to perform the steps comprising of: a) receiving a communication transmitted over a communication network; b) applying one or more tests to the received communication to generate data associated with the received communication; c) acquiring data associated with one or more previously received communications; d) detecting whether an anomaly exists with respect to the received communication based upon the generated data and acquired data; and e) initiating a predetermined response if an anomaly was detected wherein the instructions causing the system processor to detect whether an anomaly exists comprise instructions causing the system processor to perform the steps comprising of: i) determining a set of anomaly types of interest; ii) for each of the anomaly types of interest in the determined set, 1) acquiring one or more anomaly thresholds associated with the respective anomaly type based at least in part upon the acquired data associated with one or more previously received communications; 2) comparing information in the stored risk profile against at least one of the acquired one or more anomaly thresholds; and 3) determining whether an anomaly of the respective anomaly type exists with respect to the received communication based upon the comparison. 40. The media of claim 39, wherein the instructions causing the system processor to receive the communication comprise instructions causing the system processor to receive an e-mail communication. 41. The media of claim 39, wherein the instructions causing the system processor to apply one or more tests comprise instructions causing the system processor to apply one or more of an intrusion detection test, a virus detection test, a spam detection test or a policy violation test. 42. The media of claim 39, wherein the initiated predetermined response is based upon an anomaly type associated with a detected anomaly. 43. The media of claim 39, wherein the initiated predetermined response comprises conveying a notification to an administrator, refusing acceptance of further communications from the source of the received communication, quarantine of the received communication, stripping the received communication of identified content, or throttling excessive numbers of incoming connections per second to manageable levels.


	*Description*

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED PATENT APPLICATIONS This application is related to commonly assigned U.S. patent applications entitled "Systems and Methods for Enhancing Electronic Communication Security" and "Systems and Methods for Adaptive Message Interrogation through Multiple Queues", assigned respectively Ser. Nos. 10/094,211 and 10/093,553, filed on Mar. 8, 2002 and incorporated herein by reference. BACKGROUND The present invention is directed to systems and methods for enhancing security associated with electronic communications. More specifically, without limitation, the present invention relates to computer-based systems and methods for assessing security risks associated with electronic communications transmitted over a communications network. The Internet is a global network of connected computer networks. Over the last several years, the Internet has grown in significant measure. A large number of computers on the Internet provide information in various forms. Anyone with a computer connected to the Internet can potentially tap into this vast pool of information. The information available via the Internet encompasses information available via a variety of types of application layer information servers such as SMTP (simple mail transfer protocol), POP3 (Post Office Protocol), GOPHER (RFC 1436), WAIS, HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol, RFC 2616) and FTP (file transfer protocol, RFC 1123). One of the most wide spread method of providing information over the Internet is via the World Wide Web (the Web). The Web consists of a subset of the computers connected to the Internet; the computers in this subset run Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) servers (Web servers). Several extensions and modifications to HTTP have been proposed including, for example, an extension framework (RFC 2774) and authentication (RFC 2617). Information on the Internet can be accessed through the use of a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI, RFC 2396). A URI uniquely specifies the location of a particular piece of information on the Internet. A URI will typically be composed of several components. The first component typically designates the protocol by which the address piece of information is accessed (e.g., HTTP, GOPHER, etc.). This first component is separated from the remainder of the URI by a colon (`:`). The remainder of the URI will depend upon the protocol component. Typically, the remainder designates a computer on the Internet by name, or by IP number, as well as a more specific designation of the location of the resource on the designated computer. For instance, a typical URI for an HTTP resource might be: http://www.server.com/dir1/dir2/resource.htm where http is the protocol, www.server.com is the designated computer and /dir1/dir2/resouce.htm designates the location of the resource on the designated computer. The term URI includes Uniform Resource Names (URN's) including URN's as defined according to RFC 2141. Web servers host information in the form of Web pages; collectively the server and the information hosted are referred to as a Web site. A significant number of Web pages are encoded using the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) although other encodings using eXtensible Markup Language (XML) or XHTML. The published specifications for these languages are incorporated by reference herein; such specifications are available from the World Wide Web Consortium and its Web site (http://www.w3c.org). Web pages in these formatting languages may include links to other Web pages on the same Web site or another. As will be known to those skilled in the art, Web pages may be generated dynamically by a server by integrating a variety of elements into a formatted page prior to transmission to a Web client. Web servers, and information servers of other types, await requests for the information from Internet clients. Client software has evolved that allows users of computers connected to the Internet to access this information. Advanced clients such as Netscape's Navigator and Microsoft's Internet Explorer allow users to access software provided via a variety of information servers in a unified client environment. Typically, such client software is referred to as browser software. Electronic mail (e-mail) is another wide spread application using the Internet. A variety of protocols are often used for e-mail transmission, delivery and processing including SMTP and POP3 as discussed above. These protocols refer, respectively, to standards for communicating e-mail messages between servers and for server-client communication related to e-mail messages. These protocols are defined respectively in particular RFC's (Request for Comments) promulgated by the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force). The SMTP protocol is defined in RFC 821, and the POP3 protocol is defined in RFC 1939. Since the inception of these standards, various needs have evolved in the field of e-mail leading to the development of further standards including enhancements or additional protocols. For instance, various enhancements have evolved to the SMTP standards leading to the evolution of extended SMTP. Examples of extensions may be seen in (1) RFC 1869 that defines a framework for extending the SMTP service by defining a means whereby a server SMTP can inform a client SMTP as to the service extensions it supports and in (2) RFC 1891 that defines an extension to the SMTP service, which allows an SMTP client to specify (a) that delivery status notifications (DSNs) should be generated under certain conditions, (b) whether such notifications should return the contents of the message, and (c) additional information, to be returned with a DSN, that allows the sender to identify both the recipient(s) for which the DSN was issued, and the transaction in which the original message was sent. In addition, the IMAP protocol has evolved as an alternative to POP3 that supports more advanced interactions between e-mail servers and clients. This protocol is described in RFC 2060. The various standards discussed above by reference to particular RFC's are hereby incorporated by reference herein for all purposes. These RFC's are available to the public through the IETF and can be retrieved from its Web site (http://www.ietf.org/rfc.html). The specified protocols are not intended to be limited to the specific RFC's quoted herein above but are intended to include extensions and revisions thereto. Such extensions and/or revisions may or may not be encompassed by current and/or future RFC's. A host of e-mail server and client products have been developed in order to foster e-mail communication over the Internet. E-mail server software includes such products as sendmail-based servers, Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes Server, and Novell GroupWise; sendmail-based servers refer to a number of variations of servers originally based upon the sendmail program developed for the UNIX operating systems. A large number of e-mail clients have also been developed that allow a user to retrieve and view e-mail messages from a server; example products include Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Outlook Express, Netscape Messenger, and Eudora. In addition, some e-mail servers, or e-mail servers in conjunction with a Web server, allow a Web browser to act as an e-mail client using the HTTP standard. As the Internet has become more widely used, it has also created new risks for corporations. Breaches of computer security by hackers and intruders and the potential for compromising sensitive corporate information are a very real and serious threat. Organizations have deployed some or all of the following security technologies to protect their networks from Internet attacks: Firewalls have been deployed at the perimeter of corporate networks. Firewalls act as gatekeepers and allow only authorized users to access a company network. Firewalls play an important role in controlling traffic into networks and are an important first step to provide Internet security. Intrusion detection systems (IDS) are being deployed throughout corporate networks. While the firewall acts as a gatekeeper, IDS act like a video camera. IDS monitor network traffic for suspicious patterns of activity, and issue alerts when that activity is detected. IDS proactively monitor your network 24 hours a day in order to identify intruders within a corporate or other local network. Firewall and IDS technologies have helped corporations to protect their networks and defend their corporate information assets. However, as use of these devices has become widespread, hackers have adapted and are now shifting their point-of-attack from the network to Internet applications. The most vulnerable applications are those that require a direct, "always-open" connection with the Internet such as web and e-mail. As a result, intruders are launching sophisticated attacks that target security holes within these applications. Many corporations have installed a network firewall, as one measure in controlling the flow of traffic in and out of corporate computer networks, but when it comes to Internet application communications such as e-mail messages and Web requests and responses, corporations often allow employees to send and receive from or to anyone or anywhere inside or outside the company. This is done by opening a port, or hole in their firewall (typically, port 25 for e-mail and port 80 for Web), to allow the flow of traffic. Firewalls do not scrutinize traffic flowing through this port. This is similar to deploying a security guard at a company's entrance but allowing anyone who looks like a serviceman to enter the building. An intruder can pretend to be a serviceman, bypass the perimeter security, and compromise the serviced Internet application. FIG. 1 depicts a typical prior art server access architecture. With in a corporation's local network 190, a variety of computer systems may reside. These systems typically include application servers 120 such as Web servers and e-mail servers, user workstations running local clients 130 such as e-mail readers and Web browsers, and data storage devices 110 such as databases and network connected disks. These systems communicate with each other via a local communication network such as Ethernet 150. Firewall system 140 resides between the local communication network and Internet 160. Connected to the Internet 160 are a host of external servers 170 and external clients 180. Local clients 130 can access application servers 120 and shared data storage 110 via the local communication network. External clients 180 can access external application servers 170 via the Internet 160. In instances where a local server 120 or a local client 130 requires access to an external server 170 or where an external client 180 or an external server 170 requires access to a local server 120, electronic communications in the appropriate protocol for a given application server flow through "always open" ports of firewall system 140. The security risks do not stop there. After taking over the mail server, it is relatively easy for the intruder to use it as a launch pad to compromise other business servers and steal critical business information. This information may include financial data, sales projections, customer pipelines, contract negotiations, legal matters, and operational documents. This kind of hacker attack on servers can cause immeasurable and irreparable losses to a business. In the 1980's, viruses were spread mainly by floppy diskettes. In today's interconnected world, applications such as e-mail serve as a transport for easily and widely spreading viruses. Viruses such as "I Love You" use the technique exploited by distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attackers to mass propagate. Once the "I Love You" virus is received, the recipient's Microsoft Outlook sends emails carrying viruses to everyone in the Outlook address book. The "I Love You" virus infected millions of computers within a short time of its release. Trojan horses, such as Code Red use this same technique to propagate themselves. Viruses and Trojan horses can cause significant lost productivity due to down time and the loss of crucial data. The Nimda worm simultaneously attacked both email and web applications. It propagated itself by creating and sending infectious email messages, infecting computers over the network and striking vulnerable Microsoft IIS Web servers, deployed on Exchange mail servers to provide web mail. Most e-mail and Web requests and responses are sent in plain text today, making it just as exposed as a postcard. This includes the e-mail message, its header, and its attachments, or in a Web context, a user name and password and/or cookie information in an HTTP request. In addition, when you dial into an Internet Service Provider (ISP) to send or receive e-mail messages, the user ID and password are also sent in plain text, which can be snooped, copied, or altered. This can be done without leaving a trace, making it impossible to know whether a message has been compromised. The following are additional security risks caused by Internet applications: E-mail spamming consumes corporate resources and impacts productivity. Furthermore, spammers use a corporation's own mail servers for unauthorized email relay, making it appear as if the message is coming from that corporation. E-mail and Web abuse, such as sending and receiving inappropriate messages and Web pages, are creating liabilities for corporations. Corporations are increasingly facing litigation for sexual harassment or slander due to e-mail their employees have sent or received. Regulatory requirements such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (regulating financial institutions) create liabilities for companies where confidential patient or client information may be exposed in e-mail and/or Web servers or communications including e-mails, Web pages and HTTP requests. Using the "always open" port, a hacker can easily reach an appropriate Internet application server, exploit its vulnerabilities, and take over the server. This provides hackers easy access to information available to the server, often including sensitive and confidential information. The systems and methods according to the present invention provide enhanced security for communications involved with such Internet applications requiring an "always-open" connection. SUMMARY The present invention is directed to systems and methods for enhancing security of electronic communications in Internet applications. One preferred embodiment according to the present invention includes a system data store (SDS), a system processor and one or more interfaces to one or more communications network over which electronic communications are transmitted and received. The SDS stores data needed to provide the desired system functionality and may include, for example, received communications, data associated with such communications, information related to known security risks, information related to corporate policy with respect to communications for one or more applications (e.g., corporate e-mail policy or Web access guidelines) and predetermined responses to the identification of particular security risks, situations or anomalies. The SDS may include multiple physical and/or logical data stores for storing the various types of information. Data storage and retrieval functionality may be provided by either the system processor or data storage processors associated with the data store. The system processor is in communication with the SDS via any suitable communication channel(s); the system processor is in communication with the one or more interfaces via the same, or differing, communication channel(s). The system processor may include one or more processing elements that provide electronic communication reception, transmission, interrogation, analysis and/or other functionality. Accordingly, one preferred method of electronic communication security enhancement includes a variety of steps that may, in certain embodiments, be executed by the environment summarized above and more fully described below or be stored as computer executable instructions in and/or on any suitable combination of computer-readable media. In some embodiments, an electronic communication directed to or originating from an application server is received. The source of the electronic communication may be any appropriate internal or external client or any appropriate internal or external application server. One or more tests are applied to the received electronic communication to evaluate the received electronic communication for a particular security risk. A risk profile associated with the received electronic communication is stored based upon this testing. The stored risk profile is compared against data accumulated from previously received electronic communications to determine whether the received electronic communication is anomalous. If the received communication is determined to be anomalous, an anomaly indicator signal is output. The output anomaly indicator signal may, in some embodiments, notify an application server administrator of the detected anomaly by an appropriate notification mechanism (e.g., pager, e-mail, etc.) or trigger some corrective measure such as shutting down the application server totally, or partially (e.g., deny access to all communications from a particular source). Some embodiments may also support a particular approach to testing the received electronic communication, which may also be applicable for use in network level security and intrusion detection. In such embodiments, each received communication is interrogated by a plurality of interrogation engines where each such interrogation engine is of a particular type designed to test the communication for a particular security risk. Each received communication is interrogated by a series of interrogation engines of differing types. The ordering and selection of interrogation engine types for use with received communications may, in some embodiments, be configurable, whereas in others the ordering and selection may be fixed. Associated with each interrogation engine is a queue of indices for communications to be evaluated by the particular interrogation engine. When a communication is received, it is stored and assigned an index. The index for the receive communication is placed in a queue associated with an interrogation of a particular type as determined by the interrogation engine ordering. Upon completion of the assessment of the received communication by the interrogation engine associated with the assigned queue, the index is assigned to a new queue associated with an interrogation engine of the next type as determined by the interrogation engine ordering. The assignment process continues until the received communication has been assessed by an interrogation engine of each type as determined by the interrogation engine selection. If the communication successfully passes an interrogation engine of each type, the communication is forwarded to its appropriate destination. In some embodiments, if the communication fails any particular engine, a warning indicator signal may be output; in some such embodiments, the communication may then be forwarded with or without an indication of its failure to its appropriate destination, to an application administrator and/or both. In some embodiments using this queuing approach, the assignment of an index for a received communication to a queue for an interrogation engine of a particular type may involve an evaluation of the current load across all queues for the particular interrogation engine type. If a threshold load exists, a new instance of an interrogation engine of the particular type may be spawned with an associated index queue. The index for the received communication may then be assigned to the queue associated with the interrogation engine instance. In some embodiments, the load across the queues associated with the particular type may be redistributed across the queues including the one associated with the new interrogation engine instance prior to the assignment of the index associated with the newly received communication to the queue. Some embodiments may also periodically, or at particular times such as a determination that a particular queue is empty, evaluate the load across queues for a type of interrogation engine and if an inactivity threshold is met, shutdown excess interrogation instances of that type and disassociating or deallocating indices queues associated with shutdown instances. Alternatively, a fixed number of interrogation engines of each particular type may be configured in which case dynamic instance creation may or may not occur. In fixed instance embodiments not supporting dynamic instance creation, assignment to a particular queue may result from any appropriate allocation approach including load evaluation or serial cycling through queues associated with each interrogation engine instance of the particular type desired. In some embodiments, anomaly detection may occur through a process outlined as follows. In such a process, data associated with a received communication is collected. The data may be accumulated from a variety of source such as from the communication itself and from the manner of its transmission and receipt. The data may be collected in any appropriate manner such as the multiple queue interrogation approach summarized above and discussed in greater detail below. Alternatively, the data collection may result from a parallel testing process where a variety of test is individually applied to the received communication in parallel. In other embodiments, a single combined analysis such as via neural network may be applied to simultaneously collect data associated with the received communication across multiple dimensions. The collected data is then analyzed to determine whether the received communication represents an anomaly. The analysis will typically be based upon the collected data associated with the received communication in conjunction with established communication patterns over a given time period represented by aggregated data associated with previously received communications. The analysis may further be based upon defined and/or configurable anomaly rules. In some embodiments, analysis may be combined with the data collection; for instance, a neural network could both collect the data associated with the received communication and analyze it. Finally, if an anomaly is detected with respect to the received communication, an indicator signal is generated. The generated signal may provide a warning to an application administrator or trigger some other appropriate action. In some embodiments, the indicator signal generated may provide a generalized indication of an anomaly; in other embodiments, the indicator may provide additional data as to a specific anomaly, or anomalies, detected. In the latter embodiments, any warning and/or actions resulting from the signal may be dependent upon the additional data. Additional advantages of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The advantages of the invention will be realized and attained by means of the elements and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims. It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory only and are not restrictive of the invention, as claimed. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate embodiments of the invention and together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention. FIG. 1 depicts a typical prior art access environment. FIG. 2 depicts a hardware diagram for an environment using one preferred embodiment according to the present invention. FIG. 3 is a logical block diagram of the components in a typical embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 4 is a flow chart of an exemplary anomaly detection process according to the present invention. FIG. 5 is a sample anomaly detection configuration interface screen. FIG. 6 is a bock diagram depicting the architecture of an exemplary embodiment of a security enhancement system according to the present invention. FIG. 7 is a block diagram depicting the architecture of an exemplary embodiment of a risk assessment approach according to the present invention using multiple queues to manage the application of a plurality of risk assessments to a received communication. FIGS. 8A 8B are a flow chart depicting the process of accessing risk associated with a received communication using the architecture depicted in FIG. 7. DETAILED DESCRIPTION Exemplary embodiments of the present invention are now described in detail. Referring to the drawings, like numbers indicate like parts throughout the views. As used in the description herein and throughout the claims that follow, the meaning of "a," "an," and "the" includes plural reference unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. Also, as used in the description herein and throughout the claims that follow, the meaning of "in" includes "in" and "on" unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. Finally, as used in the description herein and throughout the claims that follow, the meanings of "and" and "or" include both the conjunctive and disjunctive and may be used interchangeably unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. Ranges may be expressed herein as from "about" one particular value, and/or to "about" another particular value. When such a range is expressed, another embodiment includes from the one particular value and/or to the other particular value. Similarly, when values are expressed as approximations, by use of the antecedent "about," it will be understood that the particular value forms another embodiment. It will be further understood that the endpoints of each of the ranges are significant both in relation to the other endpoint, and independently of the other endpoint. Architecture of a Typical Access Environment FIG. 2 depicts a typical environment according to the present invention. As compared with FIG. 1, the access environment using systems and methods according to the present invention may include a hardware device 210 connected to the local communication network such as Ethernet 180 and logically interposed between the firewall system 140 and the local servers 120 and clients 130. All application related electronic communications attempting to enter or leave the local communications network through the firewall system 140 are routed to the hardware device 210 for application level security assessment and/or anomaly detection. Hardware device 210 need not be physically separate from existing hardware elements managing the local communications network. For instance, the methods and systems according to the present invention could be incorporated into a standard firewall system 140 or router (not shown) with equal facility. In environment not utilizing a firewall system, the hardware device 210 may still provide application level security assessment and/or anomaly detection. For convenience and exemplary purposes only, the foregoing discussion makes reference to hardware device 210; however, those skilled in the art will understand that the hardware and/or software used to implement the systems and methods according to the present invention may reside in other appropriate network management hardware and software elements. Moreover, hardware device 210 is depicted as a single element. In various embodiments, a multiplicity of actual hardware devices may be used. Multiple devices that provide security enhancement for application servers of a particular type such as e-mail or Web may be used where communications of the particular type are allocated among the multiple devices by an appropriate allocation strategy such as (1) serial assignment that assigns a communication to each device sequentially or (2) via the use of a hardware and/or software load balancer that assigns a communication to the device based upon current device burden. A single device may provide enhanced security across multiple application server types, or each device may only provide enhanced security for a single application server type. In one embodiment, hardware device 210 may be a rack-mounted Intel-based server at either 1U or 2U sizes. The hardware device 210 can be configured with redundant components such as power supplies, processors and disk arrays for high availability and scalability. The hardware device 210 may include SSL/TLS accelerators for enhanced performance of encrypted messages. The hardware device 210 will include a system processor potentially including multiple processing elements where each processing element may be supported via Intel-compatible processor platforms preferably using at least one PENTIUM III or CELERON (Intel Corp., Santa Clara, Calif.) class processor; alternative processors such as UltraSPARC (Sun Microsystems, Palo Alto, Calif.) could be used in other embodiments. In some embodiments, security enhancement functionality, as further described below, may be distributed across multiple processing elements. The term processing element may refer to (1) a process running on a particular piece, or across particular pieces, of hardware, (2) a particular piece of hardware, or either (1) or (2) as the context allows. The hardware device 210 would have an SDS that could include a variety of primary and secondary storage elements. In one preferred embodiment, the SDS would include RAM as part of the primary storage; the amount of RAM might range from 128 MB to 4 GB although these amounts could vary and represent overlapping use such as where security enhancement according to the present invention is integrated into a firewall system. The primary storage may in some embodiments include other forms of memory such as cache memory, registers, non-volatile memory (e.g., FLASH, ROM, EPROM, etc.), etc. The SDS may also include secondary storage including single, multiple and/or varied servers and storage elements. For example, the SDS may use internal storage devices connected to the system processor. In embodiments where a single processing element supports all of the security enhancement functionality, a local hard disk drive may serve as the secondary storage of the SDS, and a disk operating system executing on such a single processing element may act as a data server receiving and servicing data requests. It will be understood by those skilled in the art that the different information used in the security enhancement processes and systems according to the present invention may be logically or physically segregated within a single device serving as secondary storage for the SDS; multiple related data stores accessible through a unified management system, which together serve as the SDS; or multiple independent data stores individually accessible through disparate management systems, which may in some embodiments be collectively viewed as the SDS. The various storage elements that comprise the physical architecture of the SDS may be centrally located, or distributed across a variety of diverse locations. The architecture of the secondary storage of the system data store may vary significantly in different embodiments. In several embodiments, database(s) are used to store and manipulate the data; in some such embodiments, one or more relational database management systems, such as DB2 (IBM, White Plains, N.Y.), SQL Server (Microsoft, Redmond, Wash.), ACCESS (Microsoft, Redmond, Wash.), ORACLE 8i (Oracle Corp., Redwood Shores, Calif.), Ingres (Computer Associates, Islandia, N.Y.), MySQL (MySQL AB, Sweden) or Adaptive Server Enterprise (Sybase Inc., Emeryville, Calif.), may be used in connection with a variety of storage devices/file servers that may include one or more standard magnetic and/or optical disk drives using any appropriate interface including, without limitation, IDE and SCSI. In some embodiments, a tape library such as Exabyte X80 (Exabyte Corporation, Boulder, Colo.), a storage attached network (SAN) solution such as available from (EMC, Inc., Hopkinton, Mass.), a network attached storage (NAS) solution such as a NetApp Filer 740 (Network Appliances, Sunnyvale, Calif.), or combinations thereof may be used. In other embodiments, the data store may use database systems with other architectures such as object-oriented, spatial, object-relational or hierarchical or may use other storage implementations such as hash tables or flat files or combinations of such architectures. Such alternative approaches may use data servers other than database management systems such as a hash table look-up server, procedure and/or process and/or a flat file retrieval server, procedure and/or process. Further, the SDS may use a combination of any of such approaches in organizing its secondary storage architecture. The hardware device 210 would have an appropriate operating system such as WINDOWS/NT, WINDOWS 2000 or WINDOWS/XP Server (Microsoft, Redmond, Wash.), Solaris (Sun Microsystems, Palo Alto, Calif.), or LINUX (or other UNIX variant). In one preferred embodiment, the hardware device 210 includes a pre-loaded, pre-configured, and hardened UNIX operating system based upon FreeBSD (FreeBSD, Inc., http://www.freebsd.org). In this embodiment, the UNIX kernel has been vastly reduced, eliminating non-essential user accounts, unneeded network services, and any functionality that is not required for security enhancement processing. The operating system code has been significantly modified to eliminate security vulnerabilities. Depending upon the hardware/operating system platform, appropriate server software may be included to support the desired access for the purpose of configuration, monitoring and/or reporting. Web server functionality may be provided via an Internet Information Server (Microsoft, Redmond, Wash.), an Apache HTTP Server (Apache Software Foundation, Forest Hill, Md.), an iPlanet Web Server (iPlanet E-Commerce Solutions--A Sun--Netscape Alliance, Mountain View, Calif.) or other suitable Web server platform. The e-mail services may be supported via an Exchange Server (Microsoft, Redmond, Wash.), sendmail or other suitable e-mail server. Some embodiments may include one or more automated voice response (AVR) systems that are in addition to, or instead of, the aforementioned access servers. Such an AVR system could support a purely voice/telephone driven interface to the environment with hard copy output delivered electronically to suitable hard copy output device (e.g., printer, facsimile, etc.), and forward as necessary through regular mail, courier, inter-office mail, facsimile or other suitable forwarding approach. In one preferred embodiment, an Apache server variant provides an interface for remotely configuring the hardware device 210. Configuration, monitoring, and/or reporting can be provided using some form of remote access device or software. In one preferred embodiment, SNMP is used to configure and/or monitor the device. In one preferred embodiment, any suitable remote client device is used to send and retrieve information and commands to/from the hardware device 210. Such a remote client device can be provided in the form of a Java client or a Windows-based client running on any suitable platform such as a conventional workstation or a handheld wireless device or a proprietary client running on an appropriate platform also including a conventional workstation or handheld wireless device. Application Layer Electronic Communication Security Enhancement FIG. 3 depicts a block diagram of the logical components of a security enhancement system according to the present invention. The overall analysis, reporting and monitoring functionality is represented by block 310, and an