Patents Assigned to Hercules Software, LLC
  • Patent number: 8387029
    Abstract: A method for parsing and executing a software program includes receiving a portion of a software program in an original linguistic form, wherein the portion of the software program includes a nonlinear program element having a body, and, while retaining the original linguistic form, directly executing the nonlinear program element by manipulating a parse state and an input stream of tokens representing the body of the nonlinear program element, wherein directly executing comprises executing tokens until the dynamic end of the nonlinear program element is reached. A system includes a tokenizer operable to tokenize the software program and a parser operable to directly execute a nonlinear program element in the software program by manipulating a parse state and an input stream of tokens representing the body of the nonlinear program element, while preserving the original linguistic form of the software program.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 25, 2006
    Date of Patent: February 26, 2013
    Assignee: Hercules Software, LLC
    Inventor: Peter L. Bird
  • Patent number: 8234638
    Abstract: Systems and methods for disrupting the operational capabilities and the distribution capabilities of computer viruses are provided. According to one embodiment, an execution environment is created that makes a computer system appear unique to incoming viruses. Responsive to installation of a valid program, the program is registered for execution by transforming it from an executable form into a locally unique form based on a diversity mechanism. Responsive to detecting an attempted execution of a program and prior to execution of the program, it is transformed by causing a protected pre-execution process of the computer system, which implements the diversity mechanism in the form of an inverse transform, to be applied. If the program was previously validly registered, then the transformation based on the diversity mechanism results in an executable program that will execute properly on the computer system; otherwise the transformation results in an executable program that will fail to correctly execute.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 27, 2005
    Date of Patent: July 31, 2012
    Assignee: Hercules Software, LLC
    Inventor: Peter L. Bird
  • Publication number: 20070294769
    Abstract: A system for disrupting malware includes a transform function and its inverse transform function which, when applied serially to an original bit pattern will return the original bit pattern, but when applied in solo will result in a bit pattern which is different than the original bit pattern, a preprocessor configured to apply the transform function in order to transform each benign program received from the computer-readable medium from an architecturally standardized form into a locally-specific form prior to storage of the program code in the program memory; a postprocessor configured to apply the inverse transform function in order to inversely transform all programs prior to their execution, such that previously transformed benign programs are converted back to the architecturally standardized form and malicious programs are rendered dysfunctional for their intended purpose.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 16, 2007
    Publication date: December 20, 2007
    Applicant: HERCULES SOFTWARE, LLC
    Inventor: Peter Bird
  • Publication number: 20070106981
    Abstract: Systems and methods for disrupting the operational capabilities and the distribution capabilities of computer viruses are provided. According to one embodiment, an execution environment is created that makes a computer system appear unique to incoming viruses. Responsive to installation of a valid program, the program is registered for execution by transforming it from an executable form into a locally unique form based on a diversity mechanism. Responsive to detecting an attempted execution of a program and prior to execution of the program, it is transformed by causing a protected pre-execution process of the computer system, which implements the diversity mechanism in the form of an inverse transform, to be applied. If the program was previously validly registered, then the transformation based on the diversity mechanism results in an executable program that will execute properly on the computer system; otherwise the transformation results in an executable program that will fail to correctly execute.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 27, 2005
    Publication date: May 10, 2007
    Applicant: HERCULES SOFTWARE, LLC
    Inventor: Peter Bird
  • Publication number: 20070022414
    Abstract: A method for parsing and executing a software program includes receiving a portion of a software program in an original linguistic form, wherein the portion of the software program includes a nonlinear program element having a body, and, while retaining the original linguistic form, directly executing the nonlinear program element by manipulating a parse state and an input stream of tokens representing the body of the nonlinear program element, wherein directly executing comprises executing tokens until the dynamic end of the nonlinear program element is reached. A system includes a tokenizer operable to tokenize the software program and a parser operable to directly execute a nonlinear program element in the software program by manipulating a parse state and an input stream of tokens representing the body of the nonlinear program element, while preserving the original linguistic form of the software program.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 25, 2006
    Publication date: January 25, 2007
    Applicant: HERCULES SOFTWARE, LLC
    Inventor: Peter Bird