Vmware, Inc.

Nicira, Inc.

Sirisha Myneni

Arnold Poon

Arijit Chanda

Nafisa Mandliwala

Kausum Kumar

Farzad Ghannadian

Rajiv Mordani

Anirban Sengupta

Subrahmanyam Manuguri

Laxmikant Vithal Gunda

Aditi Vutukuri

Venkat Rajagopalan

Venkatakrishnan Rajagopalan

Jayant Jain

Jingmin Zhou

Suresh Babu Muppala

Sushruth Gopal

Arnold Koon-Chee Poon

Tori Chen

Robin Manhas

Rajiv Krishnamurthy

Baibhav Singh

Srinivas Ramaswamy

Lifeng Chen

Srikanth Manikarnike

Dhivya Srinivasan

Makarand Bhonsle

Solutions for ARP-based annotations for virtual machines. In some solutions, a hypervisor implemented in a first host might determine that a first process is executing on the first host. The hypervisor can determine first context information for the first process, generate an Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) request, and/or transmit a first packet comprising the ARP request and the context information to a central controller as an indication that the first process is executing on the first host.

ARP-based annotations for virtual machines

Some embodiments of the invention provide, for an intrusion detection and prevention system (IDPS) engine operating on a host computer deployed in a software-defined datacenter (SDDC), a method for detecting and analyzing malicious packet flows. Upon detecting a new packet flow, the method captures packets belonging to the new packet flow in a file. When the new packet flow ends, the method determines that a particular packet belonging to the new packet flow has triggered an alert indicating the particular packet includes a potentially malicious payload. The method annotates the file for the new packet flow with a set of contextual data that (1) specifies the new packet flow as a potentially malicious packet flow and (2) identifies the particular packet and at least one signature associated with the alert triggered by the particular packet. The method sends the annotated file to a network management server to analyze the set of contextual data to extract further information regarding the potentially malicious payload.

System and method for capturing malicious flows and associated context for threat analysis

Some embodiments of the invention provide a simplified mechanism to deploy and control a multi-segmented application by using application-based manifests that express how application segments of the multi-segment application are to be defined or modified, and how the communication profiles between these segments. In some embodiments, these manifests are application specific. Also, in some embodiments, deployment managers in a software defined datacenter (SDDC) provide these manifests as templates to administrators, who can use these templates to express their intent when they are deploying multi-segment applications in the datacenter. Application-based manifests can also be used to control previously deployed multi-segmented applications in the SDDC. Using such manifests would enable the administrators to be able to manage fine grained micro-segmentation rules based on endpoint and network attributes.

Template driven approach to deploy a multi-segmented application in an SDDC

Some embodiments of the invention provide a method of implementing an intent-based intrusion detection and prevention system in a datacenter, the datacenter including at least one host computer executing multiple machines. The method receives a filtered set of intrusion detection signatures to be enforced on the at least one host computer. The method uses a set of contextual attributes associated with a particular data message to generate an intrusion detection signature for the particular data message, the generated intrusion detection signature including a bit pattern, each bit associated with a contextual attribute in the set. The method compares the generated intrusion detection signature with the received set of intrusion detection signatures to identify a matching intrusion detection signature in the received filtered set.

Method and system for enforcing intrusion detection signatures curated for workloads based on contextual attributes in an SDDC

Some embodiments of the invention provide a method of implementing an intent-based intrusion detection and prevention system in a datacenter that includes at least one host computer executing multiple machines. The method receives multiple contextual attributes associated with a set of data messages processed by the multiple machines executing on the at least one host computer, the multiple contextual attributes including contextual attributes that are not L2-L4 attributes and that define a compute environment in which one or more workloads performed by the multiple machines executing on the at least one host computer operate. The method uses the received multiple contextual attributes to perform a filtering operation to identify, from multiple intrusion detection signatures, a set of intrusion detection signatures applicable to the one or more workloads. The method provides the identified set of intrusion detection signatures to an intrusion detection system operating on the particular host computer for enforcement.

Method and system for automatically curating intrusion detection signatures for workloads based on contextual attributes in an SDDC

In an embodiment, a computer-implemented method for enabling enhanced firewall rules via ARP-based annotations is described. In an embodiment, a method comprises detecting, by a hypervisor implemented in a first host, that a first process is executing on the first host. The hypervisor determines first context information for the first process, generates a first request, encapsulates the first request and the first context information in a first packet, and transmits the first packet to a central controller to cause the central controller to update the controller's table to indicate that the first process is executing on the first host. In response to receiving a second packet from the central controller and determining that the second packet comprises a first response, the hypervisor extracts second context information from the second packet and, based on the second context information, determines that a second process is executing on a second host.

Methods for enabling enhanced firewall rules via ARP-based annotations

Some embodiments of the invention provide a method for performing intrusion detection operations on a host computer. The method receives a data message sent by a machine executing on the host computer. For the data message's flow, the method identifies a set of one or more contextual attributes that are different than layers 2, 3 and 4 header values of the data message. The identified set of contextual attributes are provided to an intrusion detection system (IDS) engine that executes on the host computer to enforce several IDS rules. The IDS engine uses the identified set of contextual attributes to identify a subset of the IDS rules that are applicable to the received data message and that do not include all of the IDS rules enforced by the IDS engine. The IDS engine then examines the subset of IDS rules for the received data message to ascertain whether the data message is associated with a network intrusion activity. For instance, in some embodiments, the IDS engine identifies one rule in the identified subset of IDS rules as matching the received data message, and then processes this rule to determine whether the data message is associated with an intrusion.

Efficiently performing intrusion detection

Described herein are embodiments for transferring knowledge of intrusion signatures derived from a number of software-defined data centers (SDDCs), each of which has an intrusion detection system (IDS) with a convolutional neural network (CNN) to a centralized neural network. The centralized neural network is implemented as a generative adversarial neural network (GANN) having a multi-feed discriminator and a generator, which is trained from the discriminator. Knowledge in the GANN is then transferred back to the CNNs in each of the SDDCs. In this manner, each CNN obtains the learning of the CNNs in nearby IDSs of a region so that a distributed attack on each of the CNNs, such as a denial of service attack, can be defended by each of the CNNs.

Generative adversarial network based predictive model for collaborative intrusion detection systems

Techniques for providing application-independent access control in a cloud-services computing environment are provided. In one embodiment, a method for providing application-independent access control is provided. The method includes obtaining a user identity for accessing the cloud-services computing environment and receiving a user request to perform a task using an application. The method further includes collecting process-related data for performing the task using the application and obtaining one or more network routing addresses. The method further includes determining, based on the user identity, the process-related data, and the one or more network routing addresses, whether the task is to be performed. If that the task is to be performed, the task is caused to be performed using the application; and if the task is not to be performed, the user request is denied.

Identity-based access control for cloud applications

Described herein are systems, methods, and software to manage communication rates between applications in a tiered application computing environment. In one implementation, a load service monitor load information associated with applications that each execute using one or more virtual nodes. The load service further determines that the load information associated with an application of the applications satisfy one or more load criteria and identifies at least one application that communicates requests to the application. Once identified, the load service communicates a notification to the at least one application to update a communication request configuration to the application.

Managing communication rates between applications in a tiered application computing environment

Example methods and systems are provided for network diagnosis. One example method may comprise: detecting an egress packet and determining whether each of multiple network issues is detected for the egress packet or a datapath between a first virtualized computing instance and a second virtualized computing instance. The method may also comprise: generating network diagnosis code information specifying whether each of the multiple network issues is detected or not detected; generating an encapsulated packet by encapsulating the egress packet with an outer header that specifies the network diagnosis code information; and sending the encapsulated packet towards the second virtualized computing instance to cause a second computer system to perform one or more remediation actions based on the network diagnosis code information.

Network diagnosis in software-defined networking (SDN) environments

File events are correlated with intrusion detection alerts for corrective action. A monitoring component receives file events from a thin agent. An analysis component analyzes the file events and metadata obtained from the intrusion detection alerts, such as attack type or file name, to correlate a set of file events to at least one detected action (intrusion) described in the alert. A recommendation component identifies one or more options, including one or more corrective actions, which are applicable for remediating the alert. The set of options includes a recommended action from two or more possible corrective actions. The set of options are output or displayed to the user. The user selects which option/action to perform in response to the alert. In some examples, an automatic response is performed without user selection with respect to selected types of alerts, detected action(s), selected file(s) or other user-generated criteria.

Corrective action on malware intrusion detection using file introspection

A system and method for performing firewall operations on an edge service gateway virtual machine that monitors traffic for a network. The method includes detecting, from a directory service executing on a computing device, a login event on the computing device, obtaining, from the detected login event, login event information comprising an identifier that identifies a user associated with the login event, storing the login event information as one or more context attributes in an attribute table, and applying a firewall rule to a data message that corresponds to the one or more context attributes.

Context based firewall service for agentless machines

The disclosure provides an approach for remediating false positives for a network security monitoring component. Embodiments include receiving an alert related to network security for a virtual computing instance (VCI). Embodiments include collecting, in response to receiving the alert, context information from the VCI. Embodiments include providing a notification to a management plane based on the alert and the context information. Embodiments include receiving, from the management plane, in response to the notification, an indication of whether the alert is a false positive. Embodiments include training a model based on the alert, the context information, and the indication to determine whether a given alert is a false positive.

Growing community of inventors

Santa Clara, CA, United States of America

Sirisha Myneni