Patent ID: 8850587

Claim:
A method of remotely monitoring levels of security preparedness of a plurality of network connected computing machines in an enterprise on a periodic basis for obtaining a report, said method comprising: viewing and dividing by a central server a list of said plurality of network connected computing machines into a plurality of segments for remote access based on an internet protocol address range; selectively accessing by the central server the network connected computing machines in selected ones of the plurality of segments; determining, by the central server, whether one or more security policies present in the selectively accessed computing machines in each of the plurality of segments are up-to-date with the enterprise security policies; and generating, by the central server, a combined Network Security Scanner for Enterprise Protection (NSSEP) report based on the determination, wherein the NSSEP report comprises one or more of an IP address, a computer name, a MAC address, an operating system or the one or more security policies comprising one or more of an antivirus version, an antivirus definitions, a software update services (SUS) client configuration, a parent server information, or a quarantined files, the generating further comprises generating the NSSEP report based on the determination to perform a security preparedness, a conformity audit and a suitable correction of the scanned computing machines in a non-intrusive manner.