Web Security Auditing via Structural Uniqueness Sampling
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current Web server systems face challenges in continuously identifying and managing security exposures without imposing performance penalties or altering the low barrier to access enjoyed by users, as they are vulnerable to various security risks such as denial of service and data breaches.
Innovation Solution
A security auditing platform that includes a crawler subsystem to identify Web page identifiers, an auditing subsystem to selectively retrieve and audit Web pages based on structural uniqueness, and a reporting system to characterize security exposures, operating independently of the target Web site's technology and structure.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If full audits of every Web page are performed, then security exposure identification is comprehensive, but system performance deteriorates and user access is interfered with
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the Web site into multiple Web pages and further divides the auditing process into selective sampling. Instead of auditing every page completely, the system audits a representative sample of pages, identifying security exposures in the sample and inferring their presence across similar pages. This segmentation allows comprehensive security checking while maintaining system performance.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies partial action by auditing only a subset of Web pages rather than all pages. The system selects a sample of pages for full auditing and uses this partial data to identify security exposures that likely exist across the entire site, avoiding the excessive action of auditing every single page while still achieving reliable security assessment.
2Reliability
If continuous security auditing is implemented, then security exposure detection is improved, but operational interference with the target Web site increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs partial auditing by selecting a representative sample of Web pages rather than continuously auditing all pages. This partial action reduces operational interference while still providing reliable security detection, as the sample represents the overall site structure and vulnerability profile.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a virtual copy of the target Web site's structure by auditing a sample of pages and inferring the security characteristics of unaudited pages. This copying approach allows security assessment without directly interfering with the actual site operations, as the analysis is performed on sampled data rather than continuous monitoring of all site traffic.
3Reliability
If structural differences between documents are analyzed, then security vulnerability identification is improved, but processing complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the complex task of structural analysis into manageable components by focusing on specific structural elements (such as HTML tags, attributes, and document hierarchy) rather than analyzing the entire document structure at once. This segmentation reduces processing complexity while maintaining reliable vulnerability identification.
Solution Approach 2:
The system applies local quality by analyzing specific structural characteristics of Web pages that are most relevant to security vulnerabilities, rather than uniformly analyzing all structural elements. This targeted approach identifies security-relevant structural differences while reducing overall processing complexity by ignoring irrelevant structural variations.
Data Source
AI summary
A security auditing computer system efficiently evaluates and reports security exposures in a target Web site hosted on a remote Web server system. The auditing system includes a crawler subsystem that constructs a first list of Web page identifiers representing the target Web site. An auditing subsystem selectively retrieves and audits Web pages based on a second list, based on the first. Retrieval is sub-selected dependent on a determined uniqueness of Web page identifiers relative to the second list. Auditing is further sub-selected dependent on a determined uniqueness of structural identifiers computed for each retrieved Web page, including structural identifiers of Web page components contained within a Web page. The computed structural identifiers are stored in correspondence with Web page identifiers and Web page component identifiers in the second list. A reporting system produces reports of security exposures identified through the auditing of Web pages and Web page components.