Patent ID: 8024568

Claim:
A method of granting a node operated by a user access to resources based on information about the node, comprising: (a) receiving, by a receiver of a gateway, a request from a node operated by a user to access a resource; (b) generating, by an agent constructor of the gateway, a scanning agent to gather information about the node; (c) generating, by a key generator of the gateway, at least one key; (d) embedding, by an encryption function generator of the gateway, in the scanning agent the at least one generated key; (e) transmitting, by a transmitter of the gateway, the scanning agent to the node; (f) encrypting, by the scanning agent, gathered information about the node using the at least one generated key; (g) decrypting, by a decryptor of the gateway, the encrypted gathered information; and (h) receiving, by a first component of a policy engine of the gateway, the decrypted gathered information, and generating a dataset comprising a plurality of identifiers, each of the plurality of identifiers identifying a respective condition satisfied by the gathered information; (i) granting, by a second component of the policy engine, one of a plurality of levels of access to the node to access the resource responsive to application of a policy to the generated dataset.