Patent ID: 8667489

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for sharing the results of analyses among virtual machines, at least a portion of the method being performed by a computing device comprising at least one processor, the method comprising: providing a scanning module that is external to: a master virtual machine; at least one additional virtual machine that is based on the master virtual machine; using the scanning module to: perform a first analysis on a file of the master virtual machine; create a hash of the file of the master virtual machine prior to creation of the additional virtual machine; insert the hash of the file into the additional virtual machine upon creation of the additional virtual machine; insert information that indicates at least one result of the first analysis performed on the file into a database of the master virtual machine; index the information that indicates the result of the first analysis in the database of the master virtual machine based at least in part on the hash of the file; while the additional virtual machine is offline, programming the additional virtual machine to reference the information indexed in the database of the master virtual machine once the additional virtual machine is brought online instead of performing a second analysis that is redundant to the first analysis on the additional virtual machine by: accessing the hash of the file inserted in the additional virtual machine; locating the information indexed in the database of the master virtual machine based at least in part on the hash of the file.