Patent ID: 8220041

Claim:
A method for protecting a computer system in a computer network during boot operation of an operating system of the computer system, the method comprising: (1) compiling a security profile of the computer system into a compiled security profile for inspecting packets transmitted to or from the computer system; (2) storing the compiled security profile to a non-transitory computer readable persistent storage medium accessible to a network driver of the operating system during an early stage of the boot operation of the operating system when kernel mode services are available and before user mode services are initialized; and (3) by the network driver of the operating system, loading the compiled security profile from the non-transitory computer readable persistent storage medium into a memory of the computer system during the early stage of the boot operation of the operating system for inspecting packets transmitted to or from the computer system via the computer network based on the compiled security profile during the early stage of the boot operation of the operating system.