Kaspersky Lab, a leading developer of secure content management solutions, announces the successful patenting of some revolutionary new technology for tracing program code.
The technology offers a method for simply and securely tracing the sequence of events that occurs when a set of program instructions are executed. The patented system allows Kaspersky Lab’s team of experts to analyze the behavior of third-party programs without having to scrutinize the software’s structure and internal processes on a line-by-line basis.
The new technology, developed by Kaspersky Lab’s expert Mikhail Pavlyushik, was registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on 30 March, 2010 as Patent Number 7689974 В1.
Code-tracing allows a program’s behavior to be examined in detail in a number of different running environments. The resultant traces are then used for identifying errors and debugging software, as well as for optimizing its performance. The data obtained during code-tracing may include information about a program’s algorithms that remain the intellectual property of the vendor. This means it has to be protected against unauthorized access. The newly-patented technology from Kaspersky Lab recognizes this requirement and complies with it in full. The traces created by the software are not recorded in the usual text format, but in binary code. Additionally, all the strings are replaced by numerical descriptors, making it impossible for unauthorized parties to read the data produced by the tracing process. However, the patented system is capable of taking the data generated by the code-tracing software and turning it into legible text that program developers and other trusted users can work with.
“Using code-tracing techniques to examine a program’s source code is an effective method of analyzing its behavior. It has been used extensively in our products and by our research departments for some time now,” said Nikolay Grebennikov, CTO for Kaspersky Lab. “This newly patented technology considerably simplifies the tracing process for our malware analysts and it ensures that the results cannot be accessed by anyone who is not suitably authorized.”
Kaspersky Lab currently has more than 50 patent applications pending in the U.S., Russia, China and Europe that relate to a range of unique IT security technologies developed by the Company’s personnel.
