Mcafee, Inc.

Networks Associates Technology, Inc.

Martin James Lucas

Stephen Owen Hearnden

Christopher M Hinton

Nicolas K Wilson

Lee Codel Lawson Tarbotton

Daniel Joseph Wolff

Chris Barton

A scanning system, method and computer program product are provided. In use, portions of data are scanned. Further, access to a scanned portion of the data is allowed during scanning of another portion of the data.

System, method and computer program product for scanning portions of data

A computer virus scanning system is described in which during the scanning operation a measurement value indicative of the amount of data processing performed is calculated and this measurement value used to trigger breaks in the virus scanning operation. The triggered breaks can be used to perform a determination as to whether or not the virus scanning operations should be early terminated. One possibility is to measure the total size of the data processed during the virus scanning operation and calculate a ratio of this compared to the size of the computer file being virus scanned. If this calculated ratio exceeds a predetermined threshold, then virus scanning may be terminated. Another possibility is to associate a complexity value with each of a plurality of tests applied in the virus scanning operation. A total for these complexity values may be used to trigger the breaks and also to trigger early termination upon exceeding of respective threshold levels.

Providing break points in a malware scanning operation

A system, method and computer program product are provided for scanning data utilizing multiple scanning engines. Initially, a request for data to be scanned for viruses is generated utilizing a scanning interface. Thereafter, such request to scan data is sent to a plurality of scanning engines utilizing an engine interface application control module coupled between the scanning interface and the scanning engines. The request is adapted for prompting the scanning engines to scan the data and respond with events upon locating a virus. Such events are then received utilizing an event processor module coupled to the scanning engines and the engine interface application control module for processing the events. The processed events are then sent to the engine interface application control module for being monitored by the scanning interface.

Scanner API for executing multiple scanning engines

Growing community of inventors

Aylesbury, United Kingdom

Martin James Lucas