Patent ID: 8375006

Claim:
A method of detecting and identifying each executable file contained on each of a plurality of hard drives attached to a computer, the method comprising: determining, using an operating system (O/S) utility program, a type of an O/S file system is configured within a file management system; determining how many entities, the types of entities, and information on each entity contained on each of a plurality of hard drive devices that are attached to a computer; determining whether each entity stored on each said hard drive device is a file or a folder; recording folder information for future analysis for each said entity determined to be a folder; by performing a binary analysis using an fread( ) function on the executable file; for each said executable file, retrieving all said file information and statistics about said executable file and generating a unique file identification (ID) using the retrieved information by retrieving a file creation date and time value for said executable file; retrieving a file last modification date and time value for said executable file; retrieving a file size value for said executable file; calculating a checksum value for said executable file; converting the file creation date and time, the file last modification date and time, and the file size values into strings; and calculating the unique file ID for said executable file by appending the strings in the following order: file size first, last modification date and time second, and checksum third; and storing the unique file ID in a database.