Abstract:
A unique combination of several functions achieves a system by which consumers can validate the actual security status of a website before they decide to trust it, and therefore transact with it. In one example implementation, a security system includes a scanning engine that periodically and thoroughly scans the network and connected components of an on-line service such as a website. The results are stored and perhaps reported back to the service via alerts and the like. The website includes a “bug” which visitors can click on. The visual appearance of the “bug” can be altered (e.g. made invisible) in accordance with a determined level of security for the website. By clicking on the “bug,” the visitors can also be displayed web pages showing the security status of the website. Based on their review of such web pages, visitors can then decide whether to trust the website for further transactions.

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS  
       [0001]     The present application claims priority from, and is a continuation-in-part of, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/113,875, filed Mar. 29, 2002 and entitled “Method and Apparatus for Real-Time Security Verification of On-Line Services,” commonly owned by the present assignee, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference. 
     
    
     FIELD OF THE INVENTION  
       [0002]     The present invention relates generally to security verification, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for providing real-time third-party verification of the security status of a website or other on-line service.  
       BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
       [0003]     Although e-commerce has grown exponentially in the recent past, problems that limit future growth remain. For example, many consumers who would otherwise be willing to transact or provide private information about themselves on-line do not do it because they are afraid that the Website operator has not taken sufficient security means to protect their private information such as their name, address, buying habits and credit card information.  
         [0004]      FIG. 1  is a top-level block diagram illustrating an example environment of the invention. As shown in  FIG. 1 , the environment includes an on-line service  102  having one or more websites  104 , and visitors  106  that access the website(s) of the on-line service via a network  108  such as the Internet. Only one service  102  and visitor  106  are shown in  FIG. 1  for clarity of the invention. However, those skilled in the art will understand that there can be dozens, hundreds, thousands, and/or millions of each, depending on the type of network  108  involved.  
         [0005]     On-line service  102  is typically an ecommerce operator, or other Internet or network service that obtains and/or maintains private or confidential information about consumers. Such service is interested in removing the fear and objections consumers may have about transacting with or sharing their personal information with the website(s)  104 . Accordingly, service  102  may perform its own security oriented scans of the website and use the results to ensure that consumer information is secure. For example, such scans may be designed to detect vulnerabilities to threats such as hackers gaining access to the website(s) systems to deface the website, defraud the website&#39;s visitors or steal valuable information about the website or its visitors.  
         [0006]     Visitor  106  is a consumer or other interested party visiting, or contemplating visiting, website(s)  104  or other Internet service provided by service  102  via a PC and a modem, web kiosk or other Internet access device. Visitor  106  can be a consumer or other interested party (not necessarily an individual consumer) interested in purchasing or in some way transacting with the service  102 &#39;s on-line store, service or information base. Visitor  106  may not inherently trust on-line services and websites to protect their private and personal identifying, credit card, financial, medical or other information with sufficient security precautions to ensure its privacy and safety, and, indirectly the safety of the visitor.  
         [0007]     Website  104  includes conventional system components for delivering on-line services to the visitor. As will be understood by those skilled in the art, components of website  104  can include, but are not limited to: 
        Servers, such as the Sun e220R, Dell 5500, or other computer system involved in providing a part of the service.     Network Components, such as network routers switches and Hubs.     Firewalls, such as Checkpoint, or Firebox     Operating Systems, such as Windows NT, Redhat Linux, or Sun Solaris     Licensed technology components and applications, such as web servers and application servers, e-commerce applications, RDBMS database engines, etc.     Customer written applications such as shopping carts, information systems containing private information about Visitors and other application components.     Network operating systems and protocols, such as SNMP, ICMP, TCP, IP, DHCP, IIOS and the like.        
 
         [0015]     Some attempts have recently been made to provide security verification so as to promote confidence in visitors  106  for conducting e-commerce and other transactions with services  102 . For example, Verisign and Truste allow on-line services to place a seal (e.g. an image created by a .GIF or other image file) on their websites if they have purchased their products, but do not do any actual security testing of the sites themselves. Accordingly, such seals do not truly indicate the vulnerability of the services  102  to hacking, cracking, worms, trojans, or similar security vulnerabilities. Further, such seals do not themselves appraise visitors of the security of data held on the website  104 , or otherwise audit the security precautions of services  102  in any way.  
         [0016]     For example, Verisign does not scan their customers&#39; servers for any security vulnerabilities. In fact, Verisign does not even verify the proper installation of the Verisign digital certificate (a string of numbers which is a public key infrastructure (PKI) encryption technology) or use of secure sockets layer (SSL) to ensure the security of a visitor&#39;s transaction packets. As set forth above, the Verisign seal itself does nothing to verify to visitors  106  that the services  102  are not vulnerable to hacking, cracking, worms, trojans or similar security vulnerabilities. A user can click on the Verisign seal and Verisign will merely display a single web page showing that the service  102  has purchased a Verisign digital certificate or other product and that Verisign has verified their identity.  
         [0017]     Similarly, Truste does not test the security of the networks and servers that operate the ecommerce systems that use their seal. When a Truste seal is purchased, Truste will merely verify that the service&#39;s privacy policy meets the Truste requirements and will look at the website to verify that it appears to comply with that policy, but will not otherwise check the actual security of the servers and networking equipment which deliver the services  102 .  
         [0018]     As another example, some attempts have been made to provide third-party verification of on-line services, such as verification services performed by Qualys. Such third-party verification services may use open source tools such as those provided by www.nessus.org. However, Qualys and others do not offer a seal or other means for visitors  106  to access the results of such verification services or to otherwise verify the actual security of the services  102 . Furthermore, Qualys and others do not check for potential new server vulnerabilities between automated security checks of the website  104  used to operate the services  102 . For example, scans may only be performed on a periodic or infrequent basis, while potential new security threats, such as worms, may arise several times a day. There is currently no way for such third-party approaches to alert services  102  of such potential new threats between scans.  
         [0019]     In summary, none of the above conventional approaches are entirely trustworthy, do not adequately check and alert service  102  of potential new threats between security scans and/or are directly available to visitors  106 .  
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
       [0020]     The present invention relates to security verification, and more particularly, to providing third-party verification of the security status of on-line services.  
         [0021]     The present invention uniquely combines several functions to achieve a security verification system by which consumers can validate the actual security status of a website before they decide to trust it, and therefore transact with it. In one example implementation, a security system includes a scanning engine that periodically and thoroughly scans the network and connected components of an on-line service such as a website. The results are stored and perhaps reported back to the service via alerts and the like. The website includes a “bug” which visitors can click on. By clicking, the visitors are also displayed web pages showing the security status of the website. Based on their review of such web pages, visitors can then decide whether to trust the website for further transactions.  
         [0022]     In accordance with another example implementation of the invention, the components of on-line services are stored and compared to fingerprints of potential new vulnerabilities when they arise. Depending on whether the fingerprints match the components of the on-line services, alerts to the on-line services can be generated without performing actual scans.  
         [0023]     In accordance with a further example implementation of the invention, the security verification system maintains security meters for one or more on-line services which can be accessed by visitors. For example, the security verification system can maintain and provide security scores and corresponding graphical indicators of individual security attributes, both current and/or historical, of one or more on-line services.  
         [0024]     In accordance with a still further example implementation of the invention, the appearance of a “bug” to visitors of a Web site is controlled in such a way that it seems to appear or disappear, or have its appearance altered, as an indicator of the Web site either having passed or not passed a certain threshold of security audit. This is accomplished by causing the “bug” to be displayed only when certain security audit criteria, or security status level, is met, and causing, for example, a single-dot “clear” image, or other altered image, to be displayed in its place when these security criteria are not met. The result is a simple, yet easy to understand, indication of the security status of the site being visited, by either the appearance of, or absence of, the bug. 
     
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0025]     These and other aspects and features of the present invention will become apparent to those ordinarily skilled in the art upon review of the following description of specific embodiments of the invention in conjunction with the accompanying figures, wherein:  
         [0026]      FIG. 1  is a top-level block diagram illustrating an example environment of the invention;  
         [0027]      FIG. 2  is a top-level diagram illustrating an example environment and implementation of the invention;  
         [0028]      FIG. 3  is a block diagram illustrating an example implementation of security system in accordance with the invention in even further detail;  
         [0029]      FIG. 4  is a flow diagram illustrating an example of processing steps performed by the scanning engine according to an aspect of the invention;  
         [0030]      FIG. 5  is a flow diagram illustrating an example of processing steps performed by the alert engine according to an aspect of the invention;  
         [0031]      FIG. 6  is a flow diagram illustrating an example of processing performed by the verification engine according to an aspect of the invention;  
         [0032]      FIG. 7  is a flow diagram illustrating an example of alternative or additional processing performed by the verification engine for verifying the registration of on-line services;  
         [0033]      FIG. 8  is a block diagram illustrating an alternative embodiment of the security system of the present invention in detail;  
         [0034]      FIGS. 9A and 9B  illustrate example security meters for a website that can be displayed to visitors according to one possible implementation of the present invention; and  
         [0035]      FIG. 10  is an example display of security meters displayed for a plurality of websites to visitors according a further possible implementation of the present invention. 
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS  
       [0036]     The present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the drawings, which are provided as illustrative examples of the invention so as to enable those skilled in the art to practice the invention. Notably, the figures and examples below are not meant to limit the scope of the present invention. Moreover, where certain elements of the present invention can be partially or fully implemented using known components, only those portions of such known components that are necessary for an understanding of the present invention will be described, and detailed descriptions of other portions of such known components will be omitted so as not to obscure the invention. Further, the present invention encompasses present and future known equivalents to the known components referred to herein by way of illustration.  
         [0037]      FIG. 2  is a top-level diagram illustrating an example environment of the invention. As shown in  FIG. 2 , the on-line environment further includes security system  200 . Generally, on-line service  102  has entered into an agreement with the security system to perform third-party security verification services for one or more website(s)  104  they operate, the results of which are further available for viewing by its visitors  106  in a simple manner as described in more detail below.  
         [0038]     Preferably, system  200  is functionally and physically separate and remote from on-line service  102  (i.e. exists at a totally separate and unrelated IP address on network  108  from service  102 , and the system  200  is not corporately or otherwise controlled in any way by the same entity as the service  102 ). In other words, system  200  should only have the level and type of public and/or network access to service  102  that hackers and other threats have. This functional, physical, managerial, administrative and corporate separation provides a level of confidence to visitors  106  of independent and informed security verification that has been heretofore unavailable to them.  
         [0039]     Generally, security system  200  includes components to deliver third-party security verification services to both on-line service customers (e.g. service  102 ) and visitors  106 .  FIG. 3  is a block diagram illustrating an example implementation of security system in even further detail.  
         [0040]     As shown in  FIG. 3 , this example of security system  200  includes the following components: scanning engine  302 , customer information database  304 , alert engine  306 , reporting engine  308 , and verification engine  310 . It should be noted that system  200  can include many other conventional and novel components and functionalities such as providing system manager access and providing web server and other network access, as well as other storage and processing capability. However, even further detailed descriptions of such components and functionalities will be omitted here so as not to obscure the invention.  
         [0041]     In one example implementation, security system  200  is implemented as a Sun computer running Solaris. In such an implementation, engines  302 ,  306  and  308  are real-time software processes developed using Java. Database  304  may be implemented using a database or a flat memory and/or other known equivalents.  
         [0042]     Scanning engine  302  can include any conventionally known remote security scanner or equivalent thereof, such as the open source Nessus engine (details available from www.nessus.org), that remotely obtains and produces information about open ports, available services, network protocols, security exposures and vulnerabilities existing on a server or other device that is available over a network. Accordingly, scanning engine  302  periodically checks the web servers and/or network devices of service  102  to discover website component configuration and vulnerabilities. Scanning engine  302  initially scans the open ports of devices registered in customer information database  304 . In one example implementation such as the Nessus open source engine, the scanning process produces a set of XML files containing all information gathered during the scan. These files are parsed by scanning engine  302  and stored in database  304 , the records of which are associated with the customer account number and therefore the customer&#39;s registration information.  
         [0043]     As set forth above, scanning engine  302  stores information about the open ports, security exposures and vulnerabilities and scans completed on a server or other network device, and associates the information with a specific customer (e.g. website operator  102 ). Customer information database  304  stores information about each customer service  102 &#39;s company, users, website(s), and the scans performed on the website(s) or other devices associated with the website(s). Stored information includes a scan header record including the date, launch time, duration, and number of vulnerabilities classified by severity level. The stored information also includes information about what sockets are open on the scanned device, what generic services should be running on those ports, and what services are actually running on the open ports including version, network message protocol and other available information.  
         [0044]     Alert engine  306  is a service that alerts services  102  that are customers of system  200  about potential or confirmed security vulnerabilities by sending emails and/or reporting such events online. Such alerts can be based on device and/or service information found during a scan as compared to vulnerabilities associated with such devices and/or services stored in database  312 . In accordance with a further aspect of the invention, alerts can also be generated by comparing and matching existing service  102  information stored from previous scans against information about a newly discovered vulnerability. Such newly discovered vulnerabilities can be retrieved by the system and parsed into vulnerability fingerprint records and stored in database  312 . These records include the devices or services that pertain to the vulnerabilities. When a new vulnerability record is entered into database  312 , and if there is a possibility that the new vulnerability could present a security problem for the customer&#39;s service  102 , alert engine  306  can then generate an alert to service  102 .  
         [0045]     In one example implementation, alert engine  306  includes an email server with inboxes maintained for one or more users of each registered service  102 . Alert engine  306 , when it generates alerts, places them in the inboxes and notifies such users in accordance with preferences and thresholds associated with each user. The email server of alert engine  306  includes functionality for allowing users to access, view and delete their email alerts from their inboxes. Alert engine  306  can also be configured to send an email to any valid email address. It should be noted that although email is one possible notification method, that other automated notification techniques such as paging, instant messaging, or voice messaging over telephone, could be employed.  
         [0046]     The customer information database  304  contains account information as well as scan information about the devices of services  102  that are registered with the system  200 . Users of such registered services  102  can log in and review interactive reports about the scans contained in the system, for example. Reporting engine  308  generates tables, graphs and content viewed provided in the interactive reports based on information in database  304 . In one example, reporting engine  308  provides such reports to users and/or administrators of service  102  using a web server interface, for example.  
         [0047]     It should be noted that information in customer information database  304  and vulnerability fingerprint database  312  may be initialized in many ways, both manually (via a system manager, for example) and automatically, and example implementation details thereof will be described in more detail below. Moreover, security information in database  304  need not only include information that is automatically detected and input by scanning engine  302 . In addition to initialization information provided by a system manager, a system manager or other authorized party of service  102  can provide other manual inputs into database  304 . For example, service  102  may employ a consultant or other third party to periodically audit the service&#39;s security practices, such as password policies, network architecture, internal and external security policies, proper enforcement of those policies, employee termination policies and other indicators that might affect the security of service  102  but cannot be automatically collected via scanning engine  302 . Database  304  may include fields for such additional information, which fields can also be accessed by the alert engine, report engine and verification engine for generating alerts, reports and security ratings as will be explained in more detail below. Accordingly, this should be considered an alternative or additional embodiment of the invention.  
         [0048]     It should be noted that system  200  may further include functionality for allowing services  102  to notify system  200  of false positives. For example, if an alert email is sent of a detected vulnerability, and the service  102  determines that the alert was not an actual threat, it can notify the system to ignore that vulnerability until it is no longer found on the affected device. If the vulnerability identified by the service  102  as a false positive stops appearing after a predetermined number of scans or elapsed time, it will no longer be flagged as a false positive and will be totally removed as a potential vulnerability. If it does appear again, service  102  will be alerted again, and the service  102  will have to check again if the vulnerability is a false positive, and report back to the system  200  accordingly.  
         [0049]     The particular method of allowing a service  102  to identify vulnerabilities can be implemented in a number of ways. For example, the system  200  can have an administrator interface that allows an administrator to receive and review return emails from the service  102  and manually update the database. As another example, the system  200  (e.g. the report engine  308 ) can include a web server interface that provides pages and associated scripts (e.g. scripts associated with checkboxes appearing next to reported vulnerabilities) for allowing users of services  102  to view and correct system vulnerability reports.  
         [0050]     Verification engine  310  provides security status information of registered services  102  to visitors  106 . For example, once the scanning engine  302  has completed the scanning process and results of the process have been uploaded, the customer information database  304  is updated with a security status. In one example implementation, a service  102  that has been registered with system  200  places a “Bug” (e.g. a GIF or other image file with an associated URL or script, i.e. hyperlink) in web pages presented by its website(s)  104 . Such a “Bug,” when clicked, causes an HTTP request to be sent to the verification engine  310 . Verification engine  310  responds by determining the particular service  102  corresponding to the HTTP request, retrieving the security status of the corresponding service  102  from database  304 , and displaying a page of information containing the security status of the corresponding service  102  to the clicking visitor  106 .  
         [0051]     In a further example implementation, rather than just presenting the saved security status from database  304  to the visitor  106 , the security status presented to visitor  106  can be extrapolated to the moment of the visitor&#39;s request. Such an up-to-date security status can be derived by checking the number of vulnerabilities over a certain severity level stored in database  304  for the requested service  102  and applying a grace period for the service  102  to resolve the problem. If sufficient vulnerabilities exist for a long enough period of time, for example, a non-encrypted FTP service is running on the website  104  for more than 48 hours, the security status of service  102  can be downgraded. When vulnerabilities are resolved or are identified by service  102  as false positives, the security status is automatically upgraded and displayed the next time a visitor  106  clicks on the Bug found on pages presented by the website  104  of service  102 .  
         [0052]     It should be noted that security status information can be provided to visitors of website  104  in a variety of ways in addition to a bug provided on a page of website  104  that clicks through to a simple rating page. For example, verification engine  310  can cause the bug to click through to a detailed security meter page such as will be described in more detail below. As another example, the verification engine  310  can cause an up-to-date security status to be provided directly on the page in place of the bug, for example by continuously updating a GIF file accessed by the website. Even further alternatives will occur to those skilled in the art after being taught by the present examples, and these should be considered even further additional or alternative embodiments of the present invention.  
         [0053]     Examples of methods implemented by security system  200  in accordance with the security verification features of the invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.  
         [0054]      FIG. 4  is a flow diagram illustrating an example of processing steps performed by the scanning engine according to an aspect of the invention. For ease of illustration, processing for scanning only one registered service  102  will be described, however those skilled in the art will understand that multiple threads can be assigned for multiple services  102 , for example.  
         [0055]     The following scanning engine processing examples are consistent with the GPL licensed Nessus project vulnerability scanning engine, used in one example implementation of the invention to gather security information about a remote service  102 . Complete specification details, source code and a list of vulnerabilities scanned by Nessus are found in web pages located at www.nessus.org, which pages are incorporated herein by reference. It should be noted, however, that many additional implementation details of the scanning engine described below, such as the scheduler approach and the process of storing the scan results in the customer information database, are aspects of the present invention. These and other aspects of the invention will become more apparent from the descriptions provided hereinbelow.  
         [0056]     At engine startup (step S 402 ), the ports scanner creates several worker daemons that all interact with common log, dump and other system files. These daemons request test jobs from a worker manager process which manages the queue and can run many tests for one or more devices in parallel.  
         [0057]     Generally, the scanning engine is invoked for each device the customer service  102  has registered in the customer information database  304  according the schedule requested for that device. In one example, customers are offered five possible queue times to schedule scans of their service  102 : Immediate or once daily at 1 AM, 7 AM, 1 PM or 7 PM. Accordingly, after the engine has been invoked for a specified device (step S 404 ), it is determined in step S 406  whether a scan of the specified device is currently scheduled. If not, the next device is retrieved from the customer&#39;s information (i.e., control is returned to step S 404 ). Otherwise, a scan for the specified device is queued up and executed in random sequence by the scanning engine daemons and threads established during engine startup. These request devices to be scanned from the queue. Each scan continues to run until completed or a time-out due to customer server or network unavailability.  
         [0058]     When a scan for the particular device is due to be launched (as determined above in step S 406 ), the first step, as shown by step S 408 , is to scan all the ports on the device to see which ones are opened, identify which network transport and message protocols are offered on the port, and what services may be listening on the port. The scanning engine will then append the open port information in the customer information database  304  to the historical port scan information already stored there from prior scans.  
         [0059]     In one example implementation, the server being tested (e.g. web server associated with website  104 ) is first pinged using TCP ping to see whether the device is available. To do this, the system can use Nmap, an open source tool managed by www.insecure.org. Using Nmap, the scanning engine attempts to make a full connection to each port and interpret the data returned. This data is stored in database  304 . In one example, Nmap is issued with the -n, -p, 1-15000, -sT, -O, -r switches. Specialized scripts can also ping ports using UDP and ICMP services, for example.  
         [0060]     Next, in step S 410 , the scanning engine attempts to find services running on discovered open ports. The Nessus open source engine includes a program to do this. The list of detected services along with the list of open ports is stored in database  304  and can be used in subsequent processing to determine which vulnerability test scripts (.NASL or .NES files) are to be run.  
         [0061]     Processing continues to step S 412 , where the scanning engine selects vulnerability tests to run against the server according to information collected during the port, protocol and service discovery scans run on the device. The worker daemons request queued test jobs from the worker manager process. This continues until all relevant vulnerability tests have been completed. In an example implementation using the Nessus scanning engine, positive test results are stored in a file in XML format.  
         [0062]     In step S 414 , the scan results are parsed by the scanning engine. In the Nessus example implementation, a process parses the XML formatted information and uploads it into database  304 . For example, a summary record is created for this scan of this device as well as one detail record for each positive test result associated with this device scan. All results are associated with the device masterfile record as registered in database  304 , which is associated with the customer&#39;s company account records, also stored in database  304 . This data can then be used to calculate a security status for the service  102 , and to create interactive reports for inspection by the customer&#39;s users.  
         [0063]     Upon completion of step S 414 , processing returns to step S 404  for scanning the next device of service  102 .  
         [0064]      FIG. 5  is a flow diagram illustrating an example of processing steps performed by the alert engine according to an aspect of the invention.  
         [0065]     The alert engine helps users of services  102  that are customers of the system  200  stay abreast of their security by sending alert emails when certain events occur on their sites. The security system keeps track of alerts that are sent to users and stores them in database  304 .  
         [0066]     In one example implementation of the alert engine, the engine continually and periodically loops through each device in the customer&#39;s service  102  (determined in step S 502 , for example, by checking the device information in database  304 ) to determine if an alert for that device needs to be sent. In one example, an alert is issued under two circumstances. First, an alert can be issued when a new warning of a severe or critical vulnerability is placed in the system. This is detected in step S 504 . If a new vulnerability has been entered, processing advances to step S 506  where the vulnerability fingerprint of the new vulnerability is compared against the device information. The fingerprint includes device information that allows such comparison. For example, if the service includes a device which is a router of a certain brand, and if a new SNMP vulnerability is entered into the system for that particular brand of router, the device may be vulnerable to the new threat. If the new vulnerability is found to potentially affect the device (determined in step S 508 ), an alert may need to be issued, so processing branches to step S 512  for determining whether an alert email for the threat should be sent according to the elections of the administrator and users.  
         [0067]     An example of how new threats can be entered into the system will now be explained in even further detail. For example, system  200  can include a process that periodically sends a request for new and updated vulnerability test scripts from nessus.org. New scripts are automatically downloaded to a test area, where they are manually modified to incorporate device and other tags meaningful to the system. Another process of system  200  parses the special tags and creates a vulnerability fingerprint record of each new received vulnerability, which record is stored in database  312 . The vulnerability fingerprint record can then be used by the alert engine to compare against fingerprint information for all customer devices stored in the customer information database to see if the customer may possibly be exposed to the newly threat. The vulnerability fingerprint record also contains information to identify the severity of the vulnerability, which can be used to calculate the security status for the customer, as will be explained in more detail below.  
         [0068]     An example of a second type of trigger for an alert is that a change in security status of a device is detected resulting from a scan of the device (i.e. a security status alert). This is detected in step S 510 . For example, if this is a new device that was just detected and tested in a scan (as in step S 412  in  FIG. 4 ), and if the new device was found to be potentially vulnerable, this information is detected by alert engine  306 , and processing branches toward step S 512 . Moreover, an alert can be sent as soon as a potential negative change in the security status of the device occurs. For example, if a vulnerability with a “critical” level is found, and is not resolved within 48 hours, the service  102 &#39;s overall security rating is changed from “Secure” to “Active.” Another “final warning” alert will be sent within 4 hours of a negative status change. A final Alert will be sent at the time of the status change notifying the user of the change.  
         [0069]     In any of these status change events, processing will continue to step S 512 , where the severity of the security threat is determined. For example, a particular threat can have one of several defined levels in ascending order of severity: note, warning, critical, and severe. In one example, the level associated with the vulnerability is simply contained in the vulnerability fingerprint which is contained in the record in database  312 , and simply extracted therefrom.  
         [0070]     Processing continues to step S 514 . Here, a loop for each user of the service  102  is begun. This information is stored in customer information database  304 . Each user (possibly also including an administrator) can set up preferences about which devices and what alerts about them to receive. When all the users have been considered for receiving an alert, processing returns to step S 502  for checking the next device of service  102  in the loop.  
         [0071]     The user preferences are loaded in step S 516 . Next, the preferences are compared against the device identifier and the severity level of the vulnerability that was computed in step S 512 . If this is not a level or type of vulnerability that the user wants to receive alerts about, control returns to step S 514 . Otherwise processing continues to step S 518 , where an alert is sent to the user. In one example, this is done by placing an alert email in the user&#39;s inbox and sending a message containing a URL pointing to the email to the user.  
         [0072]     It should be noted that certain types of alerts should not be subject to the threshold determination processing of step S 516 . For example, security status change alerts may not be allowed to be suppressed. In this case, each alert is placed in the Alert Inbox, but an email saying how many of each type of alert that is received is sent to the user. No alert is sent if there are no vulnerabilities above the threshold the user selects (up to warning).  
         [0073]     It should be noted that other types of alert emails can be sent to certain or all users of service  102 . For example, an alert can also be sent when a scan has been completed and can contain a simple summary of the scan results, along with a device summary report for each device.  
         [0074]     An example of an alert email system will now be described in even further detail. For example, the system administrator of each registered service  102  can elect to allow certain, all or no user to control the alert emails they receive. If allowed, each user can elect to receive various alerts. However, it is preferred that the administrator can never elect to not receive alert emails of a Critical or Severe level. The administrator or user can suppress any level of alert for regular users. The administrator can elect to not receive alert emails at a warning or note level only. In an email implementation, all alerts go to the user&#39;s Alert Inbox where they will remain until the user dismisses them, as will be explained in more detail below.  
         [0075]     The Summary Alert Inbox contains all alerts that have not been deleted from the inbox. A check box is provided to the left of each alert. The administrator can place a check in the box and then press a “Delete” of the selected alerts button located directly under the check box column in the Alert Inbox. The screen then refreshes with the checked alerts no longer appearing.  
         [0076]     The Device Alert Inbox lists only alerts that apply to the a certain device. Alerts can be deleted here by the administrator as well. There should be clear content stating that deleting an alert removes it from the system, so it will not appear in the summary inbox or the device inbox.  
         [0077]     When an alert is deleted it is simply marked to not display in any inbox. In one alternative, alert engine includes a function that allows users to look at deleted alerts by entering a date range. For example, it could display a “View History” button above each Alert Inbox with date range input fields. This button would be associated with a CGI allowing a listing of all open alerts between and including those dates.  
         [0078]     An Alert Detail display option may be provided to accommodate the two types of alerts in the system. For example, alerts that result from new “potential” vulnerabilities would display an Alert Detail screen containing the generic vulnerability descriptive information. Alerts resulting from scans would provide scan results for that vulnerability in addition to the generic alert information. This is the same as the other Alert detail page except it would have additional fields displaying the detailed scan results obtained during the scan that produced the alert.  
         [0079]     An example of processing performed by the verification engine according to an aspect of the invention will now be described in connection with  FIG. 6 .  
         [0080]     In one example implementation of the verification engine, services  102  that are registered with the security system  200  are provided a “bug” (e.g. a GIF file with an associated URL) that can be displayed in web pages provided by their website(s)  104 . Accordingly, visitors  106  visiting the website(s) will view the “bug,” and if they wish to receive third party verification of the security of the website, they can click on the bug. Assuming that is the case (step S 602 ), a URL causes an HTTP request to be made to security system  200 , which request is then received by the verification engine  310  of system  200  (step S 604 ). The request also includes the IP address of the referring website  104  that the visitor  106  was visiting. That IP address is extracted in step S 606 . The address is then compared to the addresses in customer information database  304  corresponding to all registered services  102  of the system. If the extracted IP address does not correspond to any of the stored addresses, a non-confirmation screen is displayed back to the visitor  106  (step S 610 ) informing the visitor that the service  102  is not a scanned service.  
         [0081]     If the extracted IP address does correspond to a stored IP address (determined in step S 608 ), the security status information for the associated website is retrieved from customer information database  304 . For example, the number of open critical and severe vulnerabilities found on website  104  and when they were found is queried using the extracted IP address. Next, a status level of the website is computed in step S 612  and a web page containing this status is provided to the visitor  106  for display on the visitor&#39;s web browser (step S 614 ).  
         [0082]     One example of how the instantaneous security status of the service  102  in step S 612  may be computed is as follows. First, the system checks to see if the service is registered, and if not, the status is set to “Not Protected.” If the service  102  is registered, but has no website  104  IP address that has been registered and approved (an example of how to verify whether the registration of a website will be provided below), the status is set to “Pending.” If the service has critical or severe vulnerabilities that have been identified and not changed for more than 48 hours (or other period as adjusted in system configuration files), and have not been marked as false positives, the status is set to “Active.” If the service has been scanned within the last 72 hours, and has no outstanding critical or severe vulnerabilities that are more than 48 hours old, the status is set to “Secure.” 
         [0083]     It should be noted that the security status computed in step S 612  may not just be based on the result of the last scan performed for the service  102 . Rather, the security status presented to visitor  106  can be extrapolated to the moment of the visitor&#39;s request. Such an up-to-date security status can be derived by checking the number of vulnerabilities over a certain severity level stored in database  304  for the requested service  102  and applying a grace period for the service  102  to resolve the problem. If sufficient vulnerabilities exist for a long enough period of time, for example, a critical or severe vulnerability unresolved for more than 48 hours, the security status of service  102  can be downgraded. When vulnerabilities are resolved or are identified by service  102  as false positives, the security status is automatically upgraded and displayed the next time a visitor  106  clicks on the Bug found on pages presented by the website  104  of service  102 .  
         [0084]     The following describes an alternative to the methods and services described above in connection with  FIG. 6 . Similar to the above example implementation of the verification engine, services  102  that are registered with the security system  200  are provided certain HTML code to allow a “bug” image (e.g. a GIF file with an associated URL), located on security system  200  servers, to be displayed within web pages provided by their website(s)  104 . Actions within security system  200  will cause either a security indicator image (i.e. an image saying HACKER SAFE) or a single-dot clear GIF image to be displayed, depending on the current security status of services  102 . Accordingly, visitors  106  visiting the website(s) will only be able to view the “bug,” when website(s)  102  has a security status meeting certain criteria, and to not see the bug, or to see an alternate bug image, when their security status is below said criteria. Additionally, if visitors  106  wish to receive additional information regarding the security of the website, they can click on the bug when it is made visible. Whenever this certain HTML code located on website(s)  102  causes an HTTP request to be made to security system  200 , this request is then received by the verification engine  310  of system  200  (step S 604 ). The request also includes the IP address of the referring website  104  that the visitor  106  was visiting. That IP address is extracted in step S 606 . The address is then compared to the addresses in customer information database  304  corresponding to all registered services  102  of the system. If the extracted IP address does not correspond to any of the stored addresses, the single-dot clear GIF image, or other alternate image, is displayed back to the visitor  106  (step S 610 ) informing the visitor that the service  102  is not a scanned service.  
         [0085]     If the extracted IP address does correspond to a stored IP address (determined in step S 608 ), the security status information for the associated website is retrieved from customer information database  304 . For example, the number of open critical and severe vulnerabilities found on website  104  and when they were found is queried using the extracted IP address. Next, a status level of the website is computed in step S 612  and if the status level meets certain criteria an indicator bug image, such as an image saying “HACKER SAFE” for example, is provided to the visitor  106  for display on the visitor&#39;s web browser (step S 614 ). If, however the status level of the website is computed to be below this certain criteria as computed in step S 612 , an “invisible” image, such as a single-dot clear GIF image, or other altered image, is provided to the visitor  106  for display on the visitor&#39;s web browser (step S 614 ) causing the indicator bug image to seem to disappear, or be altered is some other way, as an indication of the website not meeting said status level.  
         [0086]     In an example implementation, the security status displayed to the visitor  106  is in the form of a meter (using similar methods such as that explained above with reference to  FIG. 6 ), which is a dynamic graphic that displays the actual security status according to a security scan. One possible implementation of such a security meter is provided in  FIG. 9A . As shown in  FIG. 9A , the meter  902  includes a bar indicator that merely provides a graphic showing how the status rates on a scale of “Low,” “Medium” and “High,” which may correspond to “Active,” “Pending” and “Secure,” as described above. It should be noted that the scale need not only show discrete values, but may indicate values in a continuous range computed by time average of ratings over two previous weeks or otherwise configured period of time, the range being given a normalized numerical scale such as from 0 to 10, for example. Another possible implementation of such a security meter is provided in  FIG. 9B . As shown in  FIG. 9B , the display is more detailed and includes an overall numeric rating  904 , along with several individual security metrics  906  on which the overall rating is based. As shown in  FIG. 9B , these can include frequency of scan, promptness of repair, frequency of vulnerabilities, how recently scanned, percentage of servers tested, and current status.  
         [0087]     Many other features and advantages of providing such third-party security verification services to the general public, in accordance with the invention, are possible. In this regard,  FIG. 8  is a block diagram illustrating an alternative embodiment of the security system  200 ′.  
         [0088]     As shown in  FIG. 8 , security system  200 ′ further includes a security web site  802 . The web site  802  responds to general public requests for pages via the Internet or other network  108 . In response to such requests for pages, web site  802  retrieves security status information from customer information database  304  and displays it. The security status information can be for a specific website that is registered with system  200 ′, or it can be for all registered websites. In one preferred implementation, the displayed status(es) is (are) in the form of a security meter. One possible example is shown in  FIG. 10 . As shown in  FIG. 10 , the display is a web page including a list of websites of interest to the visitor, along with associated meters  1002  showing their overall security status. The meters  1002  can be on a continuous scale computed as set forth above in either of the examples shown in  FIGS. 9A and 9B  or otherwise. It should be noted that the displayed websites can be selected in a number of ways by the visitor or can be automatically provided.  
         [0089]     In a further alternative embodiment, the verification engine can include additional functionality for verifying the registration of the website  104  of a service  102  for permitting third-party verification services for visitors of the website  104 . This alternative embodiment will be described in more detail in connection with the flow chart in  FIG. 7 .  
         [0090]     As shown in  FIG. 7 , a customer whose service  102  is registered with the system  200  logs into the system  200  and enters the IP/device information for the website  104  or other on-line service to make available for third-party security verification by visitors  106  (step S 702 ). At the same time, the service  102  places the “bug” (e.g. a GIF file with an associated URL) provided by the system  200  on a page maintained by the registered IP/device  104 , and provides the system  200  with the URL at which the bug is located on the site  104 . The verification engine then goes to the URL and determines whether the bug is at the specified location by checking for the filename (step S 706 ). If the bug is not there, a warning is provided by the system  200  to the service  102  (step S 708 ). Otherwise, the registration is confirmed and the information for the service  102  in database  304  is updated accordingly. Thereafter, visitors  106  visiting the site  104  will be able to obtain third-party security verification from system  200  by clicking on the bug.  
         [0091]     Although the present invention has been particularly described with reference to the preferred embodiments thereof, it should be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art that changes and modifications in the form and details may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. For example, those skilled in the art will understand that variations can be made in the number and order of processing steps illustrated in the above flow diagrams. It is intended that the appended claims include such changes and modifications.