US 10,382,459 B2 · Threat detection using a time-based cache of reputation information on an enterprise endpoint

Abstract

Threat detection instrumentation is simplified by providing and updating labels for computing objects in a context-sensitive manner. This may include simple labeling schemes to distinguish between objects, e.g., trusted/untrusted processes or corporate/private data. This may also include more granular labeling schemes such as a three-tiered scheme that identifies a category (e.g., financial, e-mail, game), static threat detection attributes (e.g., signatures, hashes, API calls), and explicit identification (e.g., what a file or process calls itself). By tracking such data for various computing objects and correlating these labels to malware occurrences, rules can be written for distribution to endpoints to facilitate threat detection based on, e.g., interactions of labeled objects, changes to object labels, and so forth. In this manner, threat detection based on complex interactions of computing objects can be characterized in a platform independent manner and pre-processed on endpoints without requiring significant communications overhead with a remote threat management facility.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A method comprising:

detecting an action at an endpoint;
receiving, from a threat management facility on the endpoint, a reputation score for the action and a time to live for the action, the reputation score based on a description of the action including a process, executing on the endpoint, that took the action and an object programmatically associated with the process through the action;
caching the description and the reputation score in an event cache on the endpoint for a duration equal to the time to live;
accumulating a plurality of the descriptions and reputation scores that have not expired in the event cache;
expiring at least one of the descriptions and reputation scores by removing the at least one of the descriptions and reputation scores from the event cache after the time to live;
generating a threat detection when a pattern of the descriptions and reputation scores in the event cache indicate malicious software operating on the endpoint;
and
communicating the threat detection to an analysis facility external to the endpoint.

5 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Threat detection using a time-based cache of reputation information on an enterprise endpoint

Life of this patent

Threat detection using a time-based cache of reputation information on an enterprise endpoint

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims20