Patent · US Active

Hardware-aided software code measurement

US8112798B2 · kind B2 · utility

3Cited by
23References
23Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateMay 5, 2006
Grant dateFeb 7, 2012
Priority date
Expiry dateJan 20, 2029

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06F11/0706
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

Described is an independent computation environment that is built into one or more hardware components of a computer system, wherein the independent computation environment hosts a logic that measures the health of other software code that executes in memory. Examples of ways to measure health include performing a mathematical computation such as a computing a hash/digital signature on the software code in the memory, and/or evaluating statistical information related to the execution of the code and/or the code's being loaded into memory. By executing the logic in an independent computation environment, the health of software code may be measured against policy/metadata in a tamper-proof or tamper-resistant environment. When the software code measurement does not comply with the policy, some action may be taken action to penalize the computer system.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.