Patents by Inventor Ahmed Said Sallam

Ahmed Said Sallam has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 9392016
    Abstract: A system for securing an electronic device may include a memory, a processor; one or more operating systems residing in the memory for execution by the processor; and a security agent configured to execute on the electronic device at a level below all of the operating systems of the electronic device accessing the memory. The security agent may be further configured to: (i) trap attempted accesses to the memory, wherein each of such attempted accesses may, individually or in the aggregate, indicate the presence of self-modifying malware; (ii) in response to trapping each attempted access to the memory, record information associated with the attempted access in a history; and (iii) in response to a triggering attempted access associated with a particular memory location, analyze information in the history associated with the particular memory location to determine if suspicious behavior has occurred with respect to the particular memory location.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 10, 2014
    Date of Patent: July 12, 2016
    Assignee: McAfee, Inc.
    Inventor: Ahmed Said Sallam
  • Publication number: 20160147995
    Abstract: A method for analyzing a computing system includes the steps of at a first moment in time, scanning the resources of the computing system for indications of malware, at a second moment in time scanning the resources of the computing system for indications of malware and determining the system executable objects loaded on the computing system, determining malware system changes, identifying a relationship between the malware system changes and the system executable objects loaded on the computing system, and identifying as suspected malware the system executable objects loaded on the computing system which have a relationship with the malware system changes. The malware system changes include differences between the results of scanning the resources of the computing system for indications of malware at the second and first moment of time.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 17, 2015
    Publication date: May 26, 2016
    Inventor: Ahmed Said Sallam
  • Patent number: 9317690
    Abstract: A system for securing an electronic device includes a non-volatile memory, a processor coupled to the non-volatile memory, a resource of the electronic device, firmware residing in the non-volatile memory and executed by the processor, and a firmware security agent residing in the firmware. The firmware is communicatively coupled to the resource of an electronic device. The firmware security agent is configured to, at a level below all of the operating systems of the electronic device accessing the resource, intercept a request for the resource and determine whether the request is indicative of malware.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 28, 2011
    Date of Patent: April 19, 2016
    Assignee: McAfee, Inc.
    Inventor: Ahmed Said Sallam
  • Patent number: 9262246
    Abstract: A security agent configured to execute on the electronic device at a level below all of the operating systems of the electronic device accessing the memory or a storage of the electronic device may be further configured to: (i) access one or more security rules to determine a criteria by which an attempted access involving a transfer of content between the memory and the storage of an electronic device will be trapped; (ii) if the criteria is met, trap, at a level below all of the operating systems of the electronic device, attempted access of data between memory and storage of an electronic device; and (iii) analyze, at a level below all of the operating systems of the electronic device, information associated with the attempted access to determine if the attempted access was affected by malware
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 31, 2011
    Date of Patent: February 16, 2016
    Assignee: McAfee, Inc.
    Inventor: Ahmed Said Sallam
  • Patent number: 9202048
    Abstract: A method for analyzing a computing system includes the steps of at a first moment in time, scanning the resources of the computing system for indications of malware, at a second moment in time scanning the resources of the computing system for indications of malware and determining the system executable objects loaded on the computing system, determining malware system changes, identifying a relationship between the malware system changes and the system executable objects loaded on the computing system, and identifying as suspected malware the system executable objects loaded on the computing system which have a relationship with the malware system changes. The malware system changes include differences between the results of scanning the resources of the computing system for indications of malware at the second and first moment of time.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 5, 2012
    Date of Patent: December 1, 2015
    Assignee: McAfee, Inc.
    Inventor: Ahmed Said Sallam
  • Patent number: 9147071
    Abstract: A method for detecting malware device drivers includes the steps of identifying one or more device drivers loaded on an electronic device, analyzing the device drivers to determine suspicious device drivers, accessing information about the suspicious device drivers in a reputation system, and evaluating whether the suspicious device driver include malware. The suspicious device drivers are not recognized as not including malware. The reputation system is configured to store information about suspicious device drivers. The evaluation is based upon historical data regarding the suspicious device driver.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 20, 2010
    Date of Patent: September 29, 2015
    Assignee: McAfee, Inc.
    Inventor: Ahmed Said Sallam
  • Publication number: 20150248557
    Abstract: A system for protecting an electronic device against malware includes a memory, an operating system configured to execute on the electronic device, and a below-operating-system security agent. The below-operating-system security agent is configured to trap an attempted access of a resource of the electronic device, access one or more security rules to determine whether the attempted access is indicative of malware, and operate at a level below all of the operating systems of the electronic device accessing the memory. The attempted access includes attempting to write instructions to the memory and attempting to execute the instructions.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 18, 2015
    Publication date: September 3, 2015
    Inventor: Ahmed Said Sallam
  • Patent number: 9087199
    Abstract: In one embodiment, a system for launching a security architecture includes an electronic device comprising a processor and one or more operating systems, a security agent, and a launching module. The launching module comprises a boot manager and a secured launching agent. The boot manager is configured to boot the secured launching agent before booting the operating systems, and the secured launching agent is configured to load a security agent. The security agent is configured to execute at a level below all operating systems of the electronic device, intercept a request to access a resource of the electronic device, the request originating from the operational level of one of one or more operating systems of the electronic device, and determine if a request is indicative of malware. In some embodiments, the secured launching agent may be configured to determine whether the security agent is infected with malware prior to loading the security agent.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 31, 2011
    Date of Patent: July 21, 2015
    Assignee: McAfee, Inc.
    Inventor: Ahmed Said Sallam
  • Patent number: 9038176
    Abstract: A system for protecting an electronic device against malware includes a memory, an operating system configured to execute on the electronic device, and a below-operating-system security agent. The below-operating-system security agent is configured to trap an attempted access of a resource of the electronic device, access one or more security rules to determine whether the attempted access is indicative of malware, and operate at a level below all of the operating systems of the electronic device accessing the memory. The attempted access includes attempting to write instructions to the memory and attempting to execute the instructions.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 31, 2011
    Date of Patent: May 19, 2015
    Assignee: McAfee, Inc.
    Inventor: Ahmed Said Sallam
  • Patent number: 9032525
    Abstract: A system for protecting an electronic system against malware includes an operating system configured to execute on the electronic device, a driver coupled to the operating system, and a below-operating-system security agent. The below-operating-system security agent is configured to identify one or more resources for changing filters of the driver, trap an attempted access of the one or more resources that originates from the operational level of the operating system, access one or more security rules to determine whether the attempted access is indicative of malware, and operate at a level below all of the operating systems of the electronic system accessing the one or more resources for changing filters of the driver.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 29, 2011
    Date of Patent: May 12, 2015
    Assignee: McAfee, Inc.
    Inventor: Ahmed Said Sallam
  • Patent number: 8966624
    Abstract: A system for securing an electronic device may include a memory, a processor, one or more operating systems residing in the memory for execution by the processor, an input-output (I/O) device of the electronic device coupled to the operating system; and a security agent configured to execute on the electronic device at a level below all of the operating systems of the electronic device accessing the I/O device. The security agent may be further configured to: (i) trap, at a level below all of the operating systems of the electronic device accessing an input/output (I/O) device, an attempted access of a facility for I/O operation with the I/O device; and (ii) using one or more security rules, analyze the attempted access to determine whether the attempted access is indicative of malware.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 31, 2011
    Date of Patent: February 24, 2015
    Assignee: McAfee, Inc.
    Inventor: Ahmed Said Sallam
  • Patent number: 8966629
    Abstract: A system for protecting an electronic device against malware includes a memory, an operating system configured to execute on the electronic device, and a below-operating-system security agent. The below-operating-system security agent is configured to trap an attempted access of one or more resources of the operating system, access one or more security rules to determine whether the attempted access is indicative of malware, operate at a level below all of the operating systems of the electronic device accessing the one or more resources. The attempted access includes an attempted loading or unloading of a driver in the operating system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 31, 2011
    Date of Patent: February 24, 2015
    Assignee: McAfee, Inc.
    Inventor: Ahmed Said Sallam
  • Publication number: 20150052608
    Abstract: A method for detecting malware includes the steps of identifying a one or more open network connections of an electronic device, associating one or more executable objects on the electronic device with the one or more open network connections of the electronic device, determining the address of a first network destination that is connected to the open network connections of the electronic device, receiving an evaluation of the first network destination, and identifying one or more of the executable objects as malware executable objects. The evaluation includes an indication that the first network destination is associated with malware. The malware executable objects includes the executable objects that are associated with the open network connections that are connected to the first network destination.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 25, 2014
    Publication date: February 19, 2015
    Inventor: Ahmed Said Sallam
  • Patent number: 8959638
    Abstract: In one embodiment, a system for protecting an electronic device against malware includes a memory, an operating system configured to execute on the electronic device, and a below-operating-system security agent. The below-operating-system security agent is configured to trap an attempted access by a first driver of the operating system of a second driver of the electronic device, access one or more security rules to determine whether the attempted access is indicative of malware, and operate at a level below all of the operating systems of the electronic device accessing the second driver.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 29, 2011
    Date of Patent: February 17, 2015
    Assignee: McAfee, Inc.
    Inventor: Ahmed Said Sallam
  • Patent number: 8955131
    Abstract: A method for proactively detecting shared libraries suspected of association with malware includes the steps of determining one or more shared libraries loaded on an electronic device, determining that one or more of the shared libraries include suspicious shared libraries by determining that the shared library is associated with indications that the shared library may have been maliciously injected, loaded, and/or operating on the electronic device, and identifying the suspicious shared libraries to a reputation server.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 27, 2010
    Date of Patent: February 10, 2015
    Assignee: McAfee Inc.
    Inventor: Ahmed Said Sallam
  • Patent number: 8925089
    Abstract: A system for securing an electronic device, may include a memory, a processor, one or more operating systems residing in the memory for execution by the processor; and a security agent configured to execute on the electronic device at a level below all of the operating systems of the electronic device accessing the memory. The security agent may be further configured to detect presence of malicious code, and in response to detecting presence of the malicious code, modify the malicious code.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 29, 2011
    Date of Patent: December 30, 2014
    Assignee: McAfee, Inc.
    Inventor: Ahmed Said Sallam
  • Publication number: 20140325656
    Abstract: A system for securing an electronic device may include a memory, a processor; one or more operating systems residing in the memory for execution by the processor; and a security agent configured to execute on the electronic device at a level below all of the operating systems of the electronic device accessing the memory. The security agent may be further configured to: (i) trap attempted accesses to the memory, wherein each of such attempted accesses may, individually or in the aggregate, indicate the presence of self-modifying malware; (ii) in response to trapping each attempted access to the memory, record information associated with the attempted access in a history; and (iii) in response to a triggering attempted access associated with a particular memory location, analyze information in the history associated with the particular memory location to determine if suspicious behavior has occurred with respect to the particular memory location.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 10, 2014
    Publication date: October 30, 2014
    Inventor: Ahmed Said Sallam
  • Patent number: 8863283
    Abstract: In one embodiment, a system for securing access to system calls includes a memory, an operating system configured to execute on an electronic device, and a below-operating-system security agent. The below-operating-system security agent is configured to identify one or more resources associated with a system call for which attempted accesses will be trapped, trap an attempted access of the one or more resources that originates from the operational level of the operating system, access one or more security rules to determine whether the attempted access is authorized, and operate at a level below all of the operating systems of the electronic device accessing the one or more resources associated with a system call.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 31, 2011
    Date of Patent: October 14, 2014
    Assignee: McAfee, Inc.
    Inventor: Ahmed Said Sallam
  • Patent number: 8863159
    Abstract: A system, method and computer program product are provided. In use, a COM server dynamic link library is identified. Further, an emulation layer is inserted in association with the COM server dynamic link library to emulate interfaces exported by the COM server dynamic link library. As an option, it may be determined whether the COM server DLL is loaded, and the emulation layer may be inserted in response to the determination.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 11, 2006
    Date of Patent: October 14, 2014
    Assignee: McAfee, Inc.
    Inventor: Ahmed Said Sallam
  • Patent number: 8819826
    Abstract: A method for detecting malware includes the steps of identifying a one or more open network connections of an electronic device, associating one or more executable objects on the electronic device with the one or more open network connections of the electronic device, determining the address of a first network destination that is connected to the open network connections of the electronic device, receiving an evaluation of the first network destination, and identifying one or more of the executable objects as malware executable objects. The evaluation includes an indication that the first network destination is associated with malware. The malware executable objects includes the executable objects that are associated with the open network connections that are connected to the first network destination.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 27, 2010
    Date of Patent: August 26, 2014
    Assignee: McAfee, Inc.
    Inventor: Ahmed Said Sallam