Patent ID: 8875272

Claim:
A firewall system for controlling connections between a client virtual machine and a network, the firewall system being adapted for location outside the client virtual machine, but is within the same physical machine, the firewall system comprising: at least one computer processor; and a hypervisor to partition the at least one computer processor into separate virtual machines, one of the virtual machines including a client virtual machine; and wherein the at least one computer processor configured to: receive incoming and outgoing connections from the network and the client virtual machine respectively; and in response to a connection request, initiate a connection between respective endpoints in the network and client virtual machine, route the connection via the hypervisor to a firewall machine, perform a security assessment comprising obtaining from at least one of the network and client virtual machine information indicative of the security state of the endpoint therein, and allow or inhibit the connection in dependence on the result of the security assessment; for at least some connection requests, the security assessment performed by the processor includes allowing the connection, monitoring traffic on the connection and allowing or inhibiting continuance of the connection in dependence on the result of said monitoring.