Raytheon Company

Raytheon Cyber Products, LLC

Isquared Gmbh

John R Wagner

Michael Simms

Ryan C Salsamendi

Matthew A Taylor

Chad D McConnell

James A Whittaker

Rahul Chaturvedi

A method for deterministic clock replay can include in response to executing a guest clock access instruction, estimating, using a virtual processor of a guest virtual machine, a value of a guest clock of the guest virtual machine based on (a) a current branch counter value that indicates a number of branch instructions executed since a first time and (b) an average time between execution of branch instructions, comparing the estimated value to an actual guest clock value of a guest clock of the guest virtual machine, and in response to determining the estimated value is less than the actual guest clock value by a threshold value, recording the number of branch instructions, the first time, and the average time between execution of branch instructions in a memory.

Estimation of guest clock value based on branch instruction count and average time between branch instructions for use in deterministic replay of execution

Embodiments of a method and apparatus for monitoring activity on a virtual machine are generally described herein. The activity may be monitored by a first hypervisor and the virtual machine may be controlled by a second hypervisor. In some embodiments, the method includes setting a breakpoint in a kernel function of the virtual machine. The method may further include generating a page fault, responsive to the virtual machine halting execution at the breakpoint, to cause the second hypervisor to page in contents of a memory location accessed by the kernel function. The method may further include inspecting the contents of the memory location to detect activity in the virtual machine.

Methods and apparatuses for monitoring activities of virtual machines

This disclosure addresses systems and methods for the protection of hardware and software in a computing environment. A hypervisor-monitor may be nested between the hardware of a host system and a hypervisor that is capable of supporting one or more guest virtual machines. The hypervisor-monitor may intercept exceptions generated by one or more processors in the host system and inspect software instructions for the hypervisor and the guests. Inspection may include performing a hash of the software instructions and a comparison of the hash with authorized software modules or a set of known malware. In this manner the hypervisor-monitor may monitor prevent the execution of malware by the hypervisor or the guests or provide a record of when code of an unknown origin was executed.

Secure cloud hypervisor monitor

A method of executing a program in a controlled environment includes initiating execution of an operating system with which the program is adapted to execute, inserting redirection logic at the beginning of the program, and executing the program such that the redirection logic is executed. A current instruction pointer is stored, and execution control is redirected to a program loader. The program loader selects a first block of instructions of the program, based at least in part on the stored current instruction pointer. This selected block of instructions is manipulated to provide a first phantom instruction block, which is executed in the controlled environment. This manipulation includes copying at least a portion of the selected first block to form the first phantom instruction block.

Growing community of inventors

Melbourne, FL, United States of America

John R Wagner