US 11,720,391 B2
Emulation automation and model checking
Vincent Urias, Albuquerque, NM (US); Brian P. Van Leeuwen, Albuquerque, NM (US); William M. S. Stout, Albuquerque, NM (US); and Michael Kunz, Gretna, NE (US)
Assigned to National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, Albuquerque, NM (US)
Filed by National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, Albuquerque, NM (US)
Filed on Nov. 10, 2020, as Appl. No. 17/94,542.
Prior Publication US 2022/0147379 A1, May 12, 2022
Int. Cl. G06F 9/455 (2018.01); G06F 9/48 (2006.01); G06F 21/56 (2013.01); G06F 16/23 (2019.01); G06F 16/28 (2019.01)
CPC G06F 9/45558 (2013.01) [G06F 9/4881 (2013.01); G06F 16/2336 (2019.01); G06F 16/289 (2019.01); G06F 21/566 (2013.01); G06F 2009/45562 (2013.01); G06F 2009/45595 (2013.01)] 27 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A computer-implemented method of automating emulations, the method comprising:
using a number of processors to perform the steps of:
collecting publicly available network data over a predefined time interval, wherein the collected network data might comprise structured and unstructured data;
converting any unstructured data in the collected network data into structured data;
storing the structured data in a database, including both structured data originally in the collected network data and structured data converted from unstructured data in the collected network data;
comparing the stored structured data to known network vulnerabilities;
creating an emulated network according to the collected network data and the comparison of the stored structured data with known vulnerabilities;
creating a number of virtual machines to run on the emulated network;
running a number of director programs on the virtual machines;
running a number of guest actor programs on the virtual machines, wherein the actor programs imitate real user behavior on the emulated network;
delivering, by the director programs, task commands to the guest actor programs to imitate real user behavior; and
presenting the imitated behavior to a user via an interface.