METHOD AND SYSTEM TO DYNAMICALLY ALTER APPLICATION FUNCTIONALITY AT RUNTIME IN A CONSTRAINED AND SECURE MANNER

• US 20160196129A1
• Filed: 08/15/2014
• Published: 07/07/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 08/15/2013
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Trend Micro Inc.
• Original Assignee: IMMUN.IO Inc. (Trend Micro Inc.)
• Inventors: Al Hamami, Ahmad Zaid
• Application Number:
  US14/912,023
• Publication Number:
  US 20160196129A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/53 by executing in a restricted environment, e.g. sandbox or secure virtual machine
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/54 by adding security routines or objects to programs
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/552 involving long-term monitoring or reporting
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/554 involving event detection and direct action
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/65 Updates security arrangements therefor G06F21/57
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/1466 Active attacks involving interception, injection, modification, spoofing of data unit addresses, e.g. hijacking, packet injection or TCP sequence number attacks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/20 for managing network security; network security policies in general filtering policies H04L63/0227
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1001 for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/34 involving the movement of software or configuration parameters network booting or remote initial program loading [RIPL] G06F9/4416

Abstract

The present disclosure provides a method and system for dynamically updating an application functionality in a secure and constrained manner comprising a cloud service for generating dynamic code fragments and receiving reports, an agent manager in communication with the cloud service receiving code fragments from the cloud service and passing reports thereto, and an in-application agent in communication with the agent manager for receiving dynamic code fragments therefrom and passing reports thereto for dynamically updating the application functionality in which the in-application agent is embedded.

Claims

1. A system for dynamically updating application functionality, the system comprising:

an in-application agent for executing code fragments for dynamically updating the application functionality in which the in-application agent is embedded and for generating reports characterizing the application functionality;

a cloud service for generating dynamic code fragments and receiving the reports;

an agent manager in communication with the cloud service for receiving the dynamic code fragments from the cloud service and passing the dynamic code fragments received to the in-application agent and for receiving reports from the in-application agent and passing the reports received to the cloud service.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the in-application agent includes a link manager for communications with the agent manager.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the in-application agent includes hooks into the web application.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the cloud service generates and updates the dynamic code fragments in response to application level and external data sources.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein upon receiving the new dynamic code fragments, the in-application agent updates a configuration to use the new dynamic code fragments.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein the in-application agent uses hooks to execute the code fragments.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein the in-application agent generates the reports locally.

8. A method of dynamically updating an application functionality, the method comprising:

embedding an in-application agent into an application;

generating dynamic code fragments in a cloud service;

providing these generated fragments to the in-application agent;

the in-application agent receiving these fragments for updating the functionality in which the in-application agent is embedded.

9. The method of claim 8 further comprising:

the in-application agent executing new code fragments;

generating a report; and

sending it to the cloud service.

10. The method of claim 9 further comprising the step of the cloud service, upon receiving the report, having the possibility of generating a new code fragment and sending the new code fragment to the in-application agent.

11. The method of claim 8 further comprising:

the cloud service receiving new information;

generating new code fragments; and

sending the new code fragments to the in-application agent; and

the in-application agent executing the new code fragment.

12. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions in code which when stored in a memory of a computing device and executed by a processor of the computing device cause the computing device to:

execute an in-application agent embedded in an application, the in-application agent including;

an in-app library for storing dynamic code fragments;

a fragment processor for adding the dynamic code fragments to the application and for generating one or more reports;

a link manager for receiving new dynamic code fragments from a cloud service generated in response to the one or more reports;

one or more hooks in the application enabling the processor to inject the new dynamic code fragments into the web application.

13. The computer readable medium of claim 12 wherein the link manager communicates with the cloud service by communicating via an encrypted link with an agent manager.