Patent ID: 8316120

Claim:
A method implemented at least in part by a computer, the method comprising: receiving a request to scan a target to determine updates for the target, the request received at an entity other than the target; requesting, via the entity, rules from an update source, the rules indicating resources to check to determine attributes of the target; and for each rule, performing, via the entity, a plurality of operations to scan the target to determine the updates for the target in response to receiving the request to scan the target, the plurality of operations comprising: identifying one or more resource names indicated by the rule; determining one or more corresponding resource names of the target using a mapping data structure; obtaining at least some data of resources identified by the corresponding resource names of the target; and evaluating an expression to compare the at least some data to one or more criteria indicated by the rule, the evaluating an expression producing a result indicative of at least one of the attributes of the target.