Systems and methods for network asset discovery and association thereof with entities

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11329878-B2
Application number	US-202017085550-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 30, 2020
Priority date	Sep 26, 2019
Publication date	May 10, 2022
Grant date	May 10, 2022

Abstract

A system for discovering digital assets and determining an association between the assets and an entity analyzes publicly available information about entities of interest and dataset(s) generated via network observations from devices using the digital assets. Additional attributes included in the network observations dataset(s) and metadata from such observations may be used to enhance the correctness of the identified entity-asset associations. Network observations dataset(s) may be monitored on an on-going basis to provide current entity-asset associations.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system for identifying networking assets of an entity, comprising:
a processor;
a network port in communication with the processor and adapted to receive or access a dataset of network access information derived from a plurality of devices, wherein the dataset comprises a plurality of tuples, each tuple comprising: (a) a location of a device, and (b) (i) a service set identifier (SSID) representing a network accessed by the device, or (11) a basic service set identifier (BSSID) corresponding to an access point of the network accessed by the device, or (iii) a network address designated to the device; and
a memory coupled to the processor and comprising instructions, which when executed by the processor, program the processor to:
select one or more tuples wherein the location of one or more devices of the plurality of devices associated with the one or more tuples matches with a location of a specified entity; and
designate: (i) the SSIDs in the tuple, or (ii) the BSSIDs in the tuple, or (iii) the network addresses in the tuple as networking assets of the entity.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the instructions program the processor to:
translate the location of a device from a tuple into a latitude-longitude location representation; or
translate the location of the specified entity into a latitude-longitude location representation.

3. The system of claim 2 , wherein the instructions program the processor to:
when a respective horizontal positioning error (HPE) value associated with a respective device location in a set of tuples is greater than a location-error threshold,
omit from the dataset the set of tuples, prior to the instructions programming the processor to select the one or more tuples.

4. The system of claim 2 , wherein to determine that the location of the device matches with the location of the specified entity, the instructions program the processor to evaluate a continuous distance metric or a discrete distance metric.

5. The system of claim 4 , wherein the continuous distance metric or the discrete distance metric corresponds to a size of premise of the entity.

6. A system for identifying networking assets of an entity, comprising:
a processor;
a network port in communication with the processor and adapted to obtain a dataset comprising network access information derived from a plurality of devices, wherein the dataset comprises a plurality of tuples, each tuple comprising: (a) a network address designated to a device, and (b)(1) a service set identifier (SSID) representing a network accessed by the device, or (i1) a basic service set identifier (BSSID) corresponding to an access point of the network accessed by the device; and
a memory coupled to the processor and comprising instructions, which when executed by the processor, program the processor to:
select one or more tuples wherein the network address designated to the one or more respective devices of the plurality of devices associated with the one or more tuples matches with a set of network addresses associated with a specified entity; and
designate: (1) the SSIDs in the tuple, or (11) the BSSIDs in the tuple as networking assets of the entity.

7. The system of claim 6 , wherein:
each tuple comprises a location of the device; and
to designate (i) the SSIDs in the tuple, or (ii) the BSSIDs in the tuple as networking assets of the entity, the instructions program the processor to determine that the location of the device in the tuple matches with a location of the specified entity.

8. The system of claim 6 , wherein each tuple comprises a location of the device, wherein the instructions program the processor to:
designate the location of the device as a location of the entity.

Assignees

• Bitsight Tech Inc

Inventors

• Allshouse Austin
• Dahlberg Daniel

Classifications

• H04L67/306

  User profiles · CPC title

• H04L41/0856

  by backing up or archiving configuration information · CPC title

• H04L43/0811

  by checking connectivity · CPC title

• H04L41/12

  Discovery or management of network topologies · CPC title

• H04L41/0866

  Checking the configuration · CPC title