Patent Document ID: 10038700
Application ID: 15083600
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A computer-implemented method of controlling communication between devices based on trustworthiness scores, comprising: continuously collecting, by a hub computer, behavioral characteristics from a plurality of devices, the behavioral characteristics from the plurality of devices being transmitted to the hub computer from the plurality of devices, and the collecting including storing the collected behavioral characteristics within the hub computer; performing, by the hub computer for each one of the devices in the plurality of devices, a trustworthiness operation, by i) extracting, from the collected behavioral characteristics, a set of behavioral characteristics most recently collected from the device by extracting behavioral characteristics received from the device that were collected by the hub computer from the device during a recent time period, ii) generating a historical set of behavioral characteristics for the device by extracting, from the collected behavioral characteristics, at least one behavioral characteristic that was collected by the hub computer from the device within a historical time period, wherein the historical time period precedes the recent time period, iii) storing the historical set of behavioral characteristics for the device within the hub computer, iv) determining that the device is one of a plurality of members of a device group, wherein the members of the device group are a subset of the plurality of devices, v) retrieving at least one set of expected behavioral characteristics from within the hub computer, at least in part by a) retrieving the historical set of behavioral characteristics for the device from within the hub computer, and b) in response to determining that the device is one of the plurality of members of the device group, retrieving a set of expected behavioral characteristics associated with the device group, vi) comparing the set of behavioral characteristics most recently collected from the device to the at least one set of expected behavioral characteristics, at least in part by a) comparing the set of behavioral characteristics most recently collected from the device to the historical set of behavioral characteristics for the device, and b) comparing the set of behavioral characteristics most recently collected from the device to the set of expected behavioral characteristics associated with the device group, vii) calculating a trustworthiness score for the device that indicates both a) an amount of similarity between the set of behavioral characteristics most recently collected from the device and the historical set of behavioral characteristics for the device, and b) an amount of similarity between the set of behavioral characteristics most recently collected from the device and the set of expected behavioral characteristics associated with the device group, and viii) storing the trustworthiness score for the device within the hub computer; receiving, at the hub computer from a first device in the plurality of devices, a request for the trustworthiness score for a second device in the plurality of devices; in response to the request for the trustworthiness score, the hub computer retrieves the trustworthiness score for the second device and transmits the trustworthiness score for the second device to the first device; and in response to receipt, by the first device, of the trustworthiness score for the second device, the first device compares the trustworthiness score for the second device to a trustworthiness safety threshold, and prevents communications between the first device and the second device in response to the trustworthiness score for the second device being less than the trustworthiness safety threshold.