Patents by Inventor Scott Randall Shell

Scott Randall Shell 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: 11263309
    Abstract: Integrity verification of a containerized application using a block device signature is described. For example, a container deployed to a host system is signed with a single block device signature. The operating system of the host system implements an integrity policy to verify the integrity of the container when the container is loaded into memory and when its program code executes. During such events, the operating system verifies whether the block device signature is valid. If the block device signature is determined to be valid, the operating system enables the program code to successfully execute. Otherwise, the program code is prevented from being executed. By doing so, certain program code or processes that are not properly signed are prevented from executing, thereby protecting the host system from such processes. Moreover, by using a single block device signature for a container, the enforcement of the integrity policy is greatly simplified.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 31, 2019
    Date of Patent: March 1, 2022
    Assignee: MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING, LLC
    Inventors: Md Nazmus Sakib, Jeffrey A. Sutherland, Deven Robert Desai, Jaskaran Singh Khurana, Scott Randall Shell, Jessica M. Krynitsky
  • Publication number: 20210133313
    Abstract: Integrity verification of a containerized application using a block device signature is described. For example, a container deployed to a host system is signed with a single block device signature. The operating system of the host system implements an integrity policy to verify the integrity of the container when the container is loaded into memory and when its program code executes. During such events, the operating system verifies whether the block device signature is valid. If the block device signature is determined to be valid, the operating system enables the program code to successfully execute. Otherwise, the program code is prevented from being executed. By doing so, certain program code or processes that are not properly signed are prevented from executing, thereby protecting the host system from such processes. Moreover, by using a single block device signature for a container, the enforcement of the integrity policy is greatly simplified.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 31, 2019
    Publication date: May 6, 2021
    Inventors: Md Nazmus Sakib, Jeffrey A. Sutherland, Deven Robert Desai, Jaskaran Singh Khurana, Scott Randall Shell, Jessica M. Krynitsky
  • Publication number: 20200274939
    Abstract: The present disclosure concerns systems and methods for generating application-control policies. A system may receive application-usage data for a set of devices. The application-usage data may identify binaries with which a user interacted. The system may determine one or more application-usage characteristics for one or more devices in the set of devices based at least in part on the application-usage data and may rely solely on data associated with the binaries with which the user interacted. The system may identify a set of candidate devices based on the one or more application-usage characteristics. The application-usage characteristics may include a measure of distinct applications used during a specified time period and a measure of variability of application usage across a set of specified time periods. The system may generate an application-control policy for the set of candidate devices based on application-usage data for the set of candidate devices.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 26, 2019
    Publication date: August 27, 2020
    Inventors: Md. Nazmus SAKIB, Isha Aniruddha OKE, Scott Randall SHELL, Jeffrey Alan SUTHERLAND, Jaskaran Singh KHURANA, Thomas Walter CALDWELL, III, Zhouheng SUN, Noah McGregor HARPER
  • Patent number: 8397290
    Abstract: Embodiments provide a security infrastructure that may be configured to run on top of an existing operating system to control what resources can be accessed by an applications and what APIs an application can call. Security decisions are made by taking into account both the current thread's identity and the current thread's call chain context to enable minimal privilege by default. The current thread context is captured and a copy of it is created to be used to perform security checks asynchronously. Every thread in the system has an associated identity. To obtain access to a particular resource, all the callers on the current thread are analyzed to make sure that each caller and thread has access to that resource. Only when each caller and thread has access to that resource is the caller given access to that resource.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 27, 2008
    Date of Patent: March 12, 2013
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Neil Laurence Coles, Scott Randall Shell, Upender Reddy Sandadi, Angelo Renato Vals, Matthew G. Lyons, Christopher Ross Jordan, Andrew Rogers, Yadhu Gopalan, Bor-Ming Hsieh
  • Publication number: 20090328180
    Abstract: Embodiments provide a security infrastructure that may be configured to run on top of an existing operating system to control what resources can be accessed by an applications and what APIs an application can call. Security decisions are made by taking into account both the current thread's identity and the current thread's call chain context to enable minimal privilege by default. The current thread context is captured and a copy of it is created to be used to perform security checks asynchronously. Every thread in the system has an associated identity. To obtain access to a particular resource, all the callers on the current thread are analyzed to make sure that each caller and thread has access to that resource. Only when each caller and thread has access to that resource is the caller given access to that resource.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 27, 2008
    Publication date: December 31, 2009
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Neil Laurence Coles, Scott Randall Shell, Upender Sandadi, Angelo Renato Vals, Matthew G. Lyons, Christopher Ross Jordan, Andrew Rogers, Yadhu Gopalan, Bor-Ming Hsieh