Network, method and computer readable medium for distributing security updates to select nodes on a network

• US 7,444,679 B2
• Filed: 10/31/2001
• Issued: 10/28/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 10/31/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: HTC Corporation
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Tarquini, Richard Paul, Gales, George Simon
• Primary Examiner(s): Barron, Jr.; Gilberto
• Assistant Examiner(s): LASHLEY, LAUREL L
• Application Number:
  US10/001,446
• Publication Number:
  US 20030084320A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,554 Days
• Field of Search: 726/32, 726/23, 726/25, 709/224
• US Class Current: 726/25
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/06 Management of faults, events, alarms or notifications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0218 Distributed architectures, e.g. distributed firewalls
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/1441 Countermeasures against malicious traffic countermeasures against attacks on cryptographic mechanisms H04L9/002
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/1458 Denial of Service
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/20 for managing network security; network security policies in general filtering policies H04L63/0227

Abstract

A network having a intrusion protection system comprising a network medium, a management node connected to the network medium and running an intrusion prevention system management application, and a plurality of nodes connected to the network medium and running an instance of an intrusion protection system application, at least one of the nodes having an identification assigned thereto based on a logical assignment grouping one or more of the plurality of nodes, each node sharing the identification being commonly vulnerable to at least one network exploit is provided. A method of transmitting a command and security update message to a subset of nodes of a plurality of network nodes comprising generating an update message by a management node of the network, addressing the update message to a network address shared by the subset of nodes, transmitting the update message, and receiving and processing the update message by the subset of nodes is provided. A computer-readable medium having stored thereon a set of instructions to be executed, the set of instructions, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform a computer method of generating, by the computer, a message addressed to a subset of nodes on a network, transmitting the message on a network medium of the network to the subset of nodes, receiving the message by a router terminating the network medium, and forwarding, by the router, the message to any nodes included in the subset of nodes on a second network medium terminated by the router is provided.

Claims

1. A network having an intrusion protection system, comprising:

a network medium;

a management node connected to the network medium and running an intrusion prevention system management application;

a plurality of nodes connected to the network medium and running an instance of an intrusion protection system application, at least one of the nodes having an identification assigned thereto based on a logical assignment grouping one or more of the plurality of nodes, each node sharing an identification being commonly vulnerable to at least one network exploit; and

a network-based intrusion protection system appliance dedicated to filtering inbound and outbound data frames transmitted across the network medium.

2. The network according to claim 1 wherein the network-based intrusion protection system appliance interfaces with the network medium via a network interface card operating in promiscuous mode.

3. The network according to claim 1 wherein the network-based intrusion protection system appliance shares the identification.