Patent ID: 9697362
Date: 2017-07-04
CPC Classifications: G06F,G06Q,H04L

Claim:
1. A data processing method comprising: using a Launch Point computer, assessing a plurality of researchers as a precondition for receiving an invitation to be a researcher of a distributed plurality of researchers, resulting in forming the distributed plurality of researchers in which each researcher is associated in digitally stored data records with one or more tags that identify the researcher for one or more attributes; using the Launch Point computer, electronically inviting a subset of the distributed plurality of researchers to participate in one or more computer vulnerability research projects directed to identifying computer vulnerabilities of one or more third party computers that are owned or operated by a third party, the subset of the distributed plurality of researchers selected based on the one or more tags in records that identify the researcher and a description of the computer vulnerabilities of the one or more third party computers; using the Launch Point computer that is communicatively coupled to a particular researcher among the subset of the distributed plurality of researchers and a particular third party computer under test among the one or more third party computers, monitoring communications between the particular researcher and the particular third party computer under test, wherein the communications relate to attempting to identify a candidate security vulnerability of the particular third party computer under test and the communications include electronic communications; in response to a report of the candidate security vulnerability of the particular third party computer that is received from the particular researcher, evaluating the report of the candidate security vulnerability based upon the candidate security vulnerability identified in the report by the particular researcher in the report and the monitored communications between the particular researcher and the particular third party computer under test.