Software Service Remediation via Security Graph Traversal

The patent segments the monolithic service discovery system into distributed service mesh components including sidecar proxies, control planes, and data planes. Each service instance is wrapped with a sidecar proxy that handles discovery locally, distributing the discovery load across numerous small units rather than relying on a centralized mechanism. This segmentation enables the system to scale to millions of services while maintaining resilience through localized failure containment.

The patent introduces a new dimensional layer (the service mesh layer) between applications and the underlying infrastructure. This mesh layer operates in parallel to traditional discovery mechanisms, providing an additional dimension for service identification and communication. The mesh encompasses services, networks, security, and observability dimensions simultaneously, enabling scalable discovery without overloading traditional single-dimension mechanisms.

The patent introduces control plane components as intermediaries that mediate between distributed service registries. These control planes implement consistent hashing algorithms and lease-based registration mechanisms that coordinate updates across multiple nodes. The intermediary layer translates distributed registry operations into consistent state transitions, preventing inconsistencies while maintaining high availability through redundant node participation.

The patent implements feedback mechanisms where sidecar proxies continuously report service state changes to the control plane, which then propagates updates to the distributed registry. This feedback loop ensures that all nodes receive synchronized information about service registrations, deregistrations, and state changes. The system uses exponential backoff and retry logic in the feedback path to handle transient synchronization issues, maintaining consistency even during node failures.

The patent applies local quality by implementing security policies at the individual service and component level rather than uniformly across the entire system. Each service mesh policy can be customized to enforce authentication, authorization, encryption, and rate limiting specific to that service's requirements. This granular approach enables secure interoperability between heterogeneous services while minimizing the attack surface by applying security measures only where needed rather than broadly.

The patent implements preliminary security actions by enforcing authentication and authorization policies before services can interact through the mesh. The control plane pre-configures security policies that are automatically applied to service communications, including mutual TLS authentication, JWT validation, and service account verification. This preliminary security layer prevents malicious actors from exploiting discovery mechanisms before they can cause harm, while still enabling legitimate service interoperability.