Live Patching Honeypots for Unknown Vulnerability Detection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current intrusion detection and prevention systems lack effective collaboration and deep integration, struggle with false positives, and are inadequate in protecting against local code vulnerability attacks, especially with unknown software vulnerabilities and zero-day exploits.
Innovation Solution
The method involves converting computing systems with unknown software vulnerabilities into honeypots using live updates that detect changes in system invariants, generating security events, and modifying software to create shadow data structures, allowing for real-time detection and prevention of exploitation attempts without requiring additional hardware or separate network machines.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional intrusion detection systems use statistical behavior anomalies or strict rules, then detection capability is improved, but false positives increase and configuration becomes difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates honeypot copies of vulnerable systems that replicate the appearance of real targets but are isolated and monitored. These copies allow the system to detect intrusion attempts without exposing actual systems, eliminating false positives from legitimate traffic and removing configuration complexity while maintaining high detection capability.
Solution Approach 2:
The honeypot system acts as an intermediary between attackers and real systems. By placing monitored vulnerable copies in between, the system captures and analyzes intrusion attempts without direct interaction with production systems, simplifying configuration while improving reliable detection of actual attacks.
2Reliability
If honeypots are deployed as separate machines or network resources, then detection capability is improved, but deployment complexity and management difficulty increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the honeypot functionality directly into the production system by applying live patches that transform existing vulnerable systems into monitored honeypots. This eliminates the need for separate honeypot machines and reduces deployment complexity while maintaining detection capability through integrated monitoring of system invariants.
Solution Approach 2:
The live patching mechanism provides universal functionality by simultaneously protecting against known vulnerabilities and creating honeypots for unknown vulnerabilities across multiple systems. A single patching infrastructure serves multiple purposes: security updates, intrusion detection, and attacker diversion, reducing overall deployment complexity.
3Reliability
If live updates are applied to convert systems into honeypots, then protection against unknown vulnerabilities is improved, but system performance may be affected
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the monitoring and detection logic into separate shadow data structures that parallel the original system state. By separating the honeypot monitoring function from the production system operations, the system achieves improved protection against unknown vulnerabilities while minimizing performance impact through non-intrusive observation of system invariants.
Data Source
AI summary
A variety of methods are provided for an application or operating system (OS) kernel intrusion detection and prevention, based on verification of security invariants and legitimacy of security state transitions from the past historical state. Methods are provided for an application or OS kernel intrusion detection and prevention for unknown attack vectors and vulnerabilities based on additional security checks added to the software by means of live patching.