Patent ID: 8800044

Claim:
A distributed system for storing and accessing threat information for use in predictive modeling in a network security service, comprising: a detection service and a hierarchical name service that operate on one or more servers, the detection service configured to: receive, over a network from a first participant client device, a threat instance detected in the network, a threat information code that identifies a threat type associated with the threat instance and a subscriber code that uniquely identifies the first participant client device, wherein one or more data attributes associated with the threat instance are not received at the detection service; store a record that describes the threat instance, wherein the record includes the threat information code and the subscriber code; receive, over the network from a second participant client device, a request for information about a potential threat identified by the threat information code; obtain from storage the subscriber code that is stored with the threat information code and uniquely identifies the first participant client device; and return the subscriber code to the second participant client device over the network; and the hierarchical name service configured to: receive the subscriber code from the second participant client device over the network; and return a network location on the network associated with the first participant client device to the second participant client device over the network, wherein the network location enables the second participant client device to obtain one or more of the data attributes from the first participant client device over the network.