Patent ID: 8566921

Claim:
A computer network, comprising: one or more computers arranged in the computer network; a system for protecting at least one computer of said one or more computers during boot operation of an operating system of the at least one computer, the system comprising: a persistent computer storage medium, storing a compiled security profile thereon for execution by a processor of the at least one computer, for inspecting packets transmitted to or from the at least one computer; the persistent computer storage medium being accessible to the operating system during an early stage of the boot operation of the operating system when kernel mode services are available but before user mode services become available; and a memory of the at least one computer, having computer readable instructions stored thereon for execution by the processor, forming a network driver of the operating system configured to load the compiled security profile from the persistent computer storage medium into the memory during the early stage of the boot operation of the operating system for inspecting packets, transmitted to or from the at least one computer, according to the compiled security profile.