OpenTelemetry Span Security Scoring for Runtime Behavior Monitoring
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Solution Overview
Problem
OpenTelemetry is primarily focused on application performance monitoring and lacks security features, failing to analyze security information during span execution and calculate security scores for transactions.
Innovation Solution
Systems and methods are introduced to detect the start and end of OpenTelemetry spans, monitor application behaviors, calculate a security score, and update the span status with a security score and text string, enabling security analysis and automatic mitigation actions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If OpenTelemetry is used solely for application performance monitoring, then application performance tracking is achieved, but security analysis capability is lacking
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extends OpenTelemetry's functionality to perform both application performance monitoring and security analysis through the same tracing infrastructure. The security score calculation is integrated into the existing span processing pipeline, allowing the system to serve multiple purposes (performance + security) without requiring separate monitoring systems.
2Reliability
If security monitoring is added to OpenTelemetry, then security score calculation is achieved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines security analysis functionality with the existing OpenTelemetry performance monitoring infrastructure. Instead of creating a separate security monitoring system, the security score calculation is merged into the span processing pipeline, reusing existing components like span creation, context propagation, and trace aggregation to minimize additional complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs self-service by automatically calculating security scores based on information already collected during normal trace execution. The security analysis leverages existing span data and application behaviors without requiring separate instrumentation or manual security configuration, reducing the burden of added functionality.
3Measurement precision
If security information is collected and analyzed during span execution, then security issues are detected, but processing overhead increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements partial action by calculating security scores only for spans that meet certain criteria or are sampled, rather than analyzing every single span. This approach maintains detection accuracy for critical security issues while reducing the overall processing overhead by focusing computational resources on high-priority or representative spans.
Data Source
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AI summary
According to some embodiments, a method includes detecting a start of an OpenTelemetry span by an application and determining security information related to the start of the OpenTelemetry span. The method further includes monitoring the application for one or more application behaviors during execution of the OpenTelemetry span. The method further includes detecting an end of the OpenTelemetry span by the application, and in response, calculate a security score for the OpenTelemetry span using the security information related to the start of the OpenTelemetry span and the one or more application behaviors detected during execution of the OpenTelemetry span. The method further includes updating a status of the OpenTelemetry span to include the security score and a text string related to the calculation of the security score.