Secure downloads
AssigneeOpen Invention Network, LLC
InventorWilliam C. (Chuck) Easttom
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An apparatus, method, and a computer program are provided in order to allow for secure downloading of data to a host operating system. The host operating system transmits a request to a virtual machine in order download the data from the Internet. In response, the virtual machine downloads the data and scans the data for malicious programs. If the result of the scan is negative, then the host operating system is configured to download the data from the virtual machine.
Claims17
A computer-implemented method, comprising:
- receiving, at a virtual machine, a request from a host operating system to download data from the Internet, wherein the request is received by way of secure shell (SSH) and comprises an Internet Protocol (IP) address or uniform resource locator (URL) of the data and instructions for the virtual machine to execute the download of the data;
- downloading, by the virtual machine, the data from the Internet to scan the downloaded data;
- scanning, by the virtual machine, the downloaded data, wherein the scanning of the downloaded data further comprises determining whether the downloaded data attempted to alter a registry, changed system logs, opened one or more ports, or any combination thereof;
- periodically receiving a query from the host machine regarding a status of the scanning of the downloaded data via secure shell, wherein the query is periodically received until the virtual machine responds to the query;
- and
- transmitting, by the virtual machine, a copy of verified downloaded Internet data to the host machine, when the host machine initiates a secure copy (SCP) or secure file transfer protocol (SFTP) connection with the virtual machine, wherein the connection between the virtual machine and host machine is only initiated by the host machine and the virtual machine is unable to initiate communication with an operating system of the host machine.
The computer-implemented method of 1, further comprising:
- transmitting a status message pertaining to the scanning of the data in response to the periodic query.
An apparatus, comprising:
- a processor;
- and
- memory comprising a set of instructions, wherein the set of instructions is configured to cause the processor to:
- receive from a host machine, at a virtual machine, a request from a host operating system to download data from the Internet, wherein the request is received by way of secure shell (SSH) and comprises an Internet Protocol (IP) address of the virtual machine or uniform resource locator (URL) of the data and instructions for the virtual machine to execute the download of the data, and
- download the data from the Internet onto the virtual machine and scan the downloaded data, wherein the scanning of the downloaded data further comprises determine if the downloaded data attempted to alter a registry, changed system logs, opened one or more ports, or any combination thereof;
- periodically receive a query from the host machine regarding a status of the scanning of the downloaded data via secure shell, wherein the query is periodically received until the virtual machine responds to the query;
- and
- transmit a copy of verified downloaded data from the virtual machine to the host machine, when the host machine initiates a secure copy (SCP) or secure file transfer protocol (SFTP) connection with the virtual machine, wherein the connection between the virtual machine and host machine is only initiated by the host machine and the virtual machine is unable to initiate communication with an operating system of the host machine.
The apparatus of 7, wherein the set of instructions is further configured to cause the processor to:
- transmit a status message pertaining to the scanning of the data in response to the periodic query.
A computer program embodied on a non-transitory computer readable medium, the computer program configured to cause a processor to:
- receive from a host operating system, at a virtual machine, a request to download data from the Internet, wherein the request is received by way of secure shell (SSH) and comprises an Internet Protocol (IP) address of the virtual machine or uniform resource locator (URL) of the data and instructions for the virtual machine to execute the download of the data;
- download to a virtual machine the data from the Internet;
- and
- scan the downloaded data, wherein the scanning of the downloaded data further comprises determine if the downloaded data attempted to alter a registry, changed system logs, opened one or more ports, or any combination thereof;
- periodically receive a query from the host machine regarding a status of the scanning of the downloaded data via secure shell, wherein the query is periodically received until the virtual machine responds to the query;
- transmit a copy of verified downloaded Internet data from the virtual machine to the host machine, when the host machine initiates a SCP or SFTP connection with the virtual machine, wherein the connection between the virtual machine and the host machine is only initiated by the host machine and the virtual machine is unable to initiate communication with an operating system of the host machine.
The computer program of 13, wherein the computer program is further configured to cause the processor to transmit a status message pertaining to the scanning of the data in response to the periodic query.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.