Patent ID: 7774848

Claim:
A method of mapping a remediation to a plurality of vulnerabilities, the method comprising: assessing susceptibility of a non-remediated machine to a first vulnerability and at least a second vulnerability by testing the non-remediated machine for susceptibility to the first vulnerability and at least the second vulnerability, the first vulnerability indicating a remediation; if the assessing of the non-remediated machine results in a first set of two or more vulnerabilities, including the first vulnerability and the second vulnerability, to which the machine is susceptible, then: implementing the remediation for the first vulnerability upon the machine to remediate the first vulnerability on the non-remediated machine; assessing susceptibility of the remediated machine to the first vulnerability and at least the second vulnerability by testing the remediated machine for susceptibility to the first vulnerability and at least the second vulnerability; if the assessing of the remediated machine identifies that the machine has been remediated for the first and second vulnerabilities and results in a second set of vulnerabilities to which the machine is susceptible, removing the vulnerabilities of the second set of vulnerabilities from first set of two or more vulnerabilities to obtain a residual set of plural vulnerabilities, the residual set including the first and second vulnerabilities, then creating a machine-actionable map between the implemented remediation and the vulnerabilities of the residual set, the machine-actionable map available for further susceptibility assessment and vulnerability remediation.