Patent ID: 7607011
Filing Date: 2009-10-20
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method of communicating information in a system having multi-level security requirements, the method comprising: receiving a packet having unencrypted data at an Ethernet switch, the packet comprising a header portion and a data portion; transmitting the packet to a node from the Ethernet switch based on a media access control address and data received by the Ethernet switch; routing the packet to a host from the node based on an Internet Protocol Address in the packet, the host including a number of virtual hosts, each virtual host having a unique Internet Protocol Address, a protected address space, an application in an application partition and a protocol stack; processing the packet at the host such that data from the packet is maintained in the protected address space associated with the virtual host; adding an application partition to a multi-cast group based on a node table; and wherein the data portion comprises at least one of a low level security data and a high level data; wherein the virtual hosts are separated by an operating system kernel; wherein the node comprises an Ethernet node, the Ethernet node comprises a verified high assurance processor; wherein the verified high assurance processor is configured to comply with the multi-level security requirements of the system by controlling the transmission of the unencrypted data to a predetermined virtual host; wherein data from the application in the application partition is unreadable by another application in a different application partition; wherein the verified high assurance processor is further configured to conduct a control check on the received packet using the node table, the node table including a source verification table; wherein the verified high assurance processor uses the source verification table to ensure the source of the packet matches an expected remote Internet Protocol Address; and wherein the verified high assurance processor uses the node table to perform a configuration check on the system components using a trusted application and to dynamically reconfigure information flow in the system components in the event of component damage.