Ncircle Network Security, Inc.

Thomas C Stracener

John S Flowers

A system in accordance with an embodiment of the invention includes a vulnerability detection system (VDS) and an intrusion detection system (IDS). The intrusion detection system leverages off of information gathered about a network, such as vulnerabilities, so that it only examines and alerts the user to potential intrusions that could actually affect the particular network. In addition, both the VDS and IDS may use rules in performing their respective analyses that are query-based and that are easy to construct. In particular, these rules may be based on a set of templates, which represent various entities or processes on the network.

Interoperability of vulnerability and intrusion detection systems

A system in accordance with an embodiment of the invention includes a vulnerability detection system (VDS) and an intrusion detection system (IDS). The intrusion detection system leverages off of information gathered about a network, such as vulnerabilities, so that it only examines and alerts the user to potential intrusions that could actually affect the particular network. In addition both the VDS and IDS use rules in performing their respective analyses that are query-based and that are easy to construct. In particular these rules are based on a set of templates, which represent various entities or processes on the network.

A system and method in accordance with the invention reliably and non-intrusively identifies various conditions of a network. In particular, an embodiment of the invention can identify an operating system, including version and patch level, and a service, including version and patch level, of a remote host on the network. Using this information, an embodiment of the invention can then reliably identify a vulnerability condition of the network. In some embodiments, the operating system and service information can be used to identify a trojan application, unlicensed software use, security policy violations, or even infer vulnerabilities that are yet unknown.

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Emeryville, CA, United States of America

Thomas C Stracener