Method and system for real time detection and prioritization of computing assets affected by publicly known vulnerabilities based on topological and transactional monitoring data

Abstract

A technology is disclosed to perform real-time and online identification and prioritization of vulnerabilities of components of software applications. Agents are deployed to components of monitored applications that monitor and report application topology, communication, code execution and code loading activity. Reported code loading and execution activity data is used to detect the loading and execution of vulnerable code, topology and communication data is used to create a topology model of the application containing communication paths, trust boundaries and location of sensitive data. The analysis of code loading and execution data reveals the extend to which vulnerable code is used by monitored application components. The topology data combined with code execution data reveals the extent to which components executing vulnerable code are exposed to untrusted entities and/or accessing sensitive data. Execution data of vulnerable code, exposure and access data of components executing the vulnerable code are used to calculate priority scores for identified vulnerabilities.