Patent ID: 8020209

Claim:
A method of adapting a system over the Internet which protects computers from malicious software programs, the method comprising: identifying a malicious software program stored on a first computer; determining whether the malicious software program is identified in a first database, the first database including categorized programs; if the malicious software program is identified in the first database, applying one or more policies associated with the malicious software program identified in the first database; only if the malicious software program is not identified in the first database, adding an identifier indicative of the malicious software program to a second database; uploading the second database including the identifier to a database factory over the Internet; determining by the database factory, whether the malicious software program associated with the identifier has been previously analyzed by the database factory; for each identifier that was not previously analyzed, associating the identifier with a respective digital fingerprint; adding the respective digital fingerprint to a third database; downloading the third database to a second computer; and scanning the second computer for the malicious software program associated with the respective digital fingerprint in the third database.