US 8,544,098 B2Granted

Security vulnerability information aggregation

AssigneeAlcatel Lucent

InventorsChristophe Gustave, Stanley TaiHai Chow, Douglas Wiemer

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Abstract

Security vulnerability information aggregation techniques are disclosed. Vulnerability information associated with one or more security vulnerabilities is obtained from multiple sources and aggregated into respective unified vulnerability definitions for the one or more security vulnerabilities. Aggregation may involve format conversion, content aggregation, or both in some embodiments. Unified vulnerability definitions may be distributed to vulnerability information consumers in accordance with consumer-specific policies. Storage of vulnerability information received from the sources may allow the aggregation process to be performed on existing vulnerability information “retro-actively”. Related data structures and Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) are also disclosed.

Claims15

Dependent claims

An apparatus comprising:

an interface to receive from a plurality of sources vulnerability definition information that defines a plurality of security vulnerabilities;
a policies store to store one or more aggregation policies, the one or more aggregation policies specifying respective sets of distribution parameters for one or more vulnerability definition information consumers;
one or more output interfaces to enable transmission of vulnerability definitions to respective groups of the one or more vulnerability definition information consumers;
an aggregator, operatively coupled to the interface, to the policies store, and to the one or more output interfaces, to receive the vulnerability definition information through the interface, to aggregate the vulnerability definition information that defines one or more security vulnerabilities into a respective unified vulnerability description for each of the one or more security vulnerabilities in accordance with the aggregation policy of a vulnerability definition information consumer in the policies store, and to distribute the respective unified vulnerability description for each of the one or more security vulnerabilities to the vulnerability definition information consumer through an output interface of the one or more output interfaces,
wherein the vulnerability definition information received from each source comprises respective source content arranged according to a respective source format, and wherein the aggregator comprises:
a plurality of format adapters operatively coupled to the interface, the plurality of format adapters comprising respective format adapters configured to convert a format of vulnerability definition information that defines the one or more respective security vulnerabilities and is received from a respective source into a format of the one or more respective unified vulnerability descriptions;
and
a content aggregator operatively coupled to the plurality of format adapters and configured to determine portions of the one or more respective unified vulnerability descriptions based on corresponding portions of source content in the converted vulnerability definition information received from the plurality of sources and converted by the plurality of format adapters.

5 more elements

A method comprising:

obtaining, by an aggregator, from a plurality of sources vulnerability definition information that defines a plurality of security vulnerabilities;
aggregating, by the aggregator, the vulnerability definition information that defines one or more security vulnerabilities into a respective unified vulnerability description for each of the one or more security vulnerabilities in accordance with an aggregation policy that specifies a set of distribution parameters for a vulnerability definition information consumer;
and
distributing, by the aggregator, the respective unified vulnerability description for each of the one or more security vulnerabilities to the vulnerability definition information consumer,
wherein the vulnerability definition information obtained from each source comprises respective source content arranged according to a respective source format, wherein the method further comprises:
converting the vulnerability definition information associated with the one or more respective security vulnerabilities from each source format into a format of the one or more respective unified vulnerability descriptions,
wherein aggregating comprises determining portions of the one or more respective unified vulnerability descriptions based on corresponding portions of source content in the converted vulnerability definition information obtained from the plurality of sources.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 11/366,319Filed 2 Mar 2006 · continuation in part
Priority: 22 Sep 2005
Published: US 2007/0067845 A122 Mar 2007
Granted: 24 Sep 2013
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification4 codes

H04L 63/1433
For detecting or protecting against malicious traffic: vulnerability analysis
G06F 21/577
Certifying or maintaining trusted computer platforms, e.g. secure boots or power-downs, version controls, system software checks, secure updates…:…
H04L
Digital communication
G06F
Computing and data processing

Family

Application11/232,004Parent of this continuation-in-part · filed 22 Sep 2005
US 2007/0067848 A1Pre-grant publication · published 22 Mar 2007
US 2007/0067845 A1Published application
US 8,544,098 B2This patent

From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.

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