Patent ID: 8019856

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of discovering location of a computer, the method comprising: collecting subnet information from a plurality of computers belonging to subnets of an intranet by a scan server, each of the subnet information comprising IP addresses of computers in a particular subnet of the intranet; designating a scan client from the plurality of scan clients in each of the subnets as a root agent; providing the subnet information to the scan server by the root agent; creating an intranet map from the collected subnet information by the scan server; providing the intranet map to the root agent by the scan server; providing the intranet map to a scan client in the plurality of scan clients, by the root agent, to allow the scan client to determine whether or not the scan client is connected to a subnet of the intranet; receiving, by the scan server, antivirus modules from a vendor of antivirus products employed in the plurality of scan clients; receiving, by root agent, the antivirus modules from the scan server; and providing, by the root agent, the antivirus modules to other scan clients in its particular subnet in the plurality of subnets.