Virtual Workload Signature Validation Across Computing Environments
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Managing cybersecurity policies across different computing environments is complicated, leading to potential exposures in an organization's infrastructure due to the need for separate solutions in each environment, which humans cannot apply consistently or timely.
Innovation Solution
A unified policy engine applies a single policy across multiple computing environments, using an admission controller to enforce policies and validate software images through cryptographic signatures, ensuring consistent and timely policy application.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If separate cybersecurity policies are maintained for each computing environment, then each environment can have customized security measures, but the complexity of policy management increases and consistency cannot be ensured
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges separate cybersecurity policies into a single unified policy that applies across multiple computing environments. The policy engine consolidates environment-specific policies (staging, production, testing) into one centralized policy definition, eliminating the need to manage separate policies while maintaining consistent security enforcement across all environments through a unified policy framework.
Solution Approach 2:
The unified cybersecurity policy is designed to be universal and applicable across multiple computing environments simultaneously. The policy engine enables a single policy definition to function across diverse environments (staging, production, testing, cloud, on-premises) with different security requirements, making the policy system multi-functional and environment-agnostic while maintaining adaptability through configurable policy parameters.
2Adaptability or versatility
If humans manually apply cybersecurity policies, then flexibility in policy customization is possible, but consistency and timeliness of policy application deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements self-service automation where the policy engine automatically discovers computing environments, retrieves software images, validates cryptographic signatures, and enforces cybersecurity policies without human intervention. The automated workflow includes environment discovery, image retrieval from repositories, signature validation against stored public keys, and automatic mitigation actions, eliminating manual policy application while maintaining consistency and timeliness across all environments.
Solution Approach 2:
The policy engine incorporates feedback mechanisms that automatically monitor computing environments for policy violations and trigger appropriate responses. The system continuously validates software image signatures, detects unauthorized images, and automatically executes mitigation actions (quarantine, deletion, blocking) based on validation results, creating a closed-loop feedback system that ensures consistent and timely policy enforcement without human involvement.
3Reliability
If software images are validated through cryptographic signatures, then security and authenticity are improved, but validation time and processing overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-storing public keys in the policy engine before validation is needed. When software images are deployed, the policy engine has already retrieved and stored the corresponding public keys from repositories, enabling immediate signature validation without delay. This preliminary preparation of validation credentials significantly reduces processing time during actual image validation while maintaining security.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces manual, time-consuming cryptographic validation processes with automated machine-based validation. The policy engine automatically retrieves software images, extracts signatures, compares them against stored public keys using cryptographic algorithms, and enforces policy decisions without human intervention. This mechanical automation of the validation process reduces processing time and eliminates the variability inherent in manual validation while maintaining cryptographic security.
4Adaptability or versatility
If multiple computing environments are secured with separate solutions, then each environment gets tailored security, but storage requirements and management overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges environment-specific security configurations into a single unified policy definition that applies across multiple computing environments. Instead of storing separate policy files for staging, production, and testing environments, the system consolidates all security requirements into one unified policy that the policy engine interprets and applies contextually to each environment, dramatically reducing storage requirements while maintaining environment-specific security tailoring through configurable parameters.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Ensures consistent, objective, and timely enforcement of cybersecurity policies across diverse environments, reducing storage needs and preventing unauthorized software deployments.
Implementation Method 1
validating, via the admission controller, the software image using a cryptographic signature
Data Source
AI summary
In some implementations, the device may include detecting a virtual instance deployed in a computing environment, the virtual instance deployed based on a software image. In addition, the device may include detecting an image name of the software image. The device may include accessing an image software repository to retrieve the software image based on the detected image name. Moreover, the device may include initiating validation of the retrieved software image. Also, the device may include initiating a mitigation action on the virtual instance in response to detecting that the retrieved software image is an invalid software image.