Systems and methods for performing vulnerability scans on virtual machines

#This application is related to the following United States Patent Application:

#Systems and Methods for Identifying Virtual Machines in a Network, U.S. application Ser. No. 13/218,606, invented by Richard Li, Jeffrey Berger, and Anastasios Giakouminakis, assigned to Rapid7, LLC, and filed concurrently herewith.

#The above referenced application is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

#The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate embodiments of the disclosure and together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the disclosure. In the figures:

#FIG. 1 is block diagram of an exemplary environment in which a virtual asset tool can interface with a virtualization infrastructure, according to various embodiments.

#FIG. 2 is a depiction of an exemplary asset record, according to various embodiments.

#It should be noted that some details of the drawings have been simplified and are drawn to facilitate understanding of the embodiments rather than to maintain strict structural accuracy, detail, and scale.

#For simplicity and illustrative purposes, the principles of the present teachings are described by referring mainly to exemplary embodiments thereof. However, one of ordinary skill in the art would readily recognize that the same principles are equally applicable to, and can be implemented in, all types of information and systems, and that any such variations do not depart from the true spirit and scope of the present teachings. Moreover, in the following detailed description, references are made to the accompanying figures, which illustrate specific exemplary embodiments. Electrical, mechanical, logical and structural changes may be made to the exemplary embodiments without departing from the spirit and scope of the present teachings. The following detailed description is, therefore, not to be taken in a limiting sense and the scope of the present teachings is defined by the appended claims and their equivalents.

#Embodiments of the present teachings relate to systems and methods for receiving updates associated with changes in a virtualization infrastructure. Further, embodiments of the present teachings relate to systems and methods for performing vulnerability scans of resources, such as virtual machines, of the virtualization infrastructure. In particular, an owner or administrator associated with a virtualized system can desire to dynamically receive the updates, and automatically schedule and perform vulnerability scans of the resources in response to the updates or other triggers.