Dynamic Software Fingerprinting
AssigneeMicrosoft Corporation
InventorRoss A. Norrie
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Embodiments of dynamic software fingerprinting techniques are presented herein. In an implementation, an inventory of applications installed on a client is performed by examination of one or more inventory categories. Relationships are then created between the installed applications from the inventory and one or more supplemental categories. Based on the relationships created, a fingerprint inventory corresponding to the client is produced which describes: the relationships; the installed applications of the client; categories including the applications; and attributes corresponding to the applications.
Claims20
One or more computer readable media comprising computer executable instructions which, when executed, direct a computer to:
- examine one or more inventory categories of a client to enumerate applications installed on the client;
- determine which enumerated applications are included in one or more supplemental categories;
- based on the determination, create relationships between the enumerated applications and the supplemental categories;
- and
- form an inventory corresponding to the client which includes the relationships.
A method comprising:
- producing an inventory of installed applications for each of a plurality of clients in a network;
- for each said client, relating each of the installed applications from the respective inventory to one or more supplemental categories of the client to produce a fingerprint inventory;
- and
- storing fingerprint inventories in a central data store accessible via the network.
One or more computer readable media comprising computer executable instructions which, when executed, direct a computing device to:
- examine a supplemental category of applications installed on a client;
- based on the examination, detect an application which is included in the supplemental category;
- determine when a record for the detected application exists in an inventory of applications installed on the client;
- and
- when a record for the detected application exists, relate the existing record to the supplemental category.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.