System and method for remote storage device scanning using a remote agent for detecting content therein

A computer system for automatically and remotely identifying content on a storage device of a remote computer system, said computer system comprising:

• a memory for storing a list of known content, said list comprising metadata that identifies said known content;
• a processor that executes instructions of a method to identify content, said method comprising:
• receiving remote metadata from a remote agent executing on the remote computer system, wherein the remote metadata comprises remote metadata entries that are associated with files stored on the storage device of the remote computer system;
• comparing said remote metadata entries to said list of known content;
• and
• issuing a report indicating that a remote metadata entry of the remote metadata entries matches with metadata of the list of known content.

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having embedded therein program instructions, which when executed by one or more processors of a device, cause the device to execute a computer system implemented process that automatically identifies restricted content on a remote computer system, the process comprising:

• transmitting scanning instructions to a remote agent executing on the remote computer system, wherein said remote computer system comprises a storage device storing files therein, wherein the remote agent retrieves metadata from the storage device of the remote computer system responsive to the scanning instructions, wherein the metadata comprises metadata entries associated with the files stored on the storage device;
• comparing said metadata entries of said remote computer system to known metadata entries;
• and
• issuing a report indicating that a metadata entry from the metadata entries of the remote computer system matches one of said known metadata entries.