US 7,512,977 B2
Intrustion protection system utilizing layers
Randall R. Cook, Springville, Utah (US); Dwain A. Kinghorn, Highland, Utah (US); and Michael E. Sainsbury, Willoughby (Australia)
Assigned to Symantec Corporation, Cupertino, Calif. (US)
Filed on Mar. 16, 2005, as Appl. No. 11/81,856.
Application 11/081856 is a continuation in part of application No. 10/459936, filed on Jun. 11, 2003, granted, now 7,117,495.
Prior Publication US 2005/0257265 A1, Nov. 17, 2005
This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.
Int. Cl. G06F 11/30 (2006.01)
U.S. Cl. 726—22  [726/23] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. An Intrusion Protected Layered System for isolating intrusive attacks on a computing system in isolation layers, those attacks including modifications to at least files on the computing system, comprising:
a computing system, said computing system capable of executing processes;
at least one storage device;
at least one file system located to said storage devices; and
computer executable instructions stored to said storage devices, said instructions executable by said computing system to perform the functions of:
(i) identifying running processes, said identifying optionally occurring as the processes are initiated,
(ii) assigning processes categorizations of trust, the categorizations of trust providing at least one “suspicious” categorization for processes at a level of suspicion sufficient to isolate write requests and at least one other categorization for other processes permitted to write to a file system or other storage container,
(iii) operating at least one isolation layer capable of containing file objects,
(iv) assigning an isolation layer to each process categorized under a “suspicious” categorization,
(v) for processes categorized under a “suspicious” categorization, directing write requests into the isolation layer assigned for those processes,
(vi) for processes not categorized under a “suspicious” categorization, permitting write requests to be written to a file system or other storage container rather than an isolation layer, and
(vii) providing access to file objects located in isolation layers, the access being provided to at least the processes assigned to each corresponding isolation layer.