Method of integrating a security operations policy into a threat management vector

1. A method of integrating a security operations policy into a threat management vector, the method comprising:

receiving at least one threat management vector (TMV) from a TMV generator, the TMV including a root vulnerability vector, at least one system vector, at least one system level vector, and a countermeasures payload including intrusion detection countermeasures (IDC), intrusion response countermeasures (IRC), and vulnerability remediation countermeasures (VRC);

propagating the TMV through a hierarchy of policy mediation regions (PMRs), each PMR being operable to refine at least one of the IDC, the IRC, and the VRC;

refining at least one of the IDC, the IRC, or the VRC to conform to a security operations policy of the PMR; and

forwarding the refined TMV to a threat management domain controller (TMDC).

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

forwarding to the TMDC a TMV including only the root vulnerability vector, the at least one system vector, and the at least one system level vector.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the hierarchy of PMRs includes at least one PMR selected from a group consisting of: a corporate PMR, a business unit PMR, a geographic PMR, a site PMR, and a domain PMR.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein refining includes:

collaborating refinements between at least one pairing selected from a group consisting of:

a non-refined IDC and a refined IRC;

a non-refined IDC and a refined VRC;

a non-refined IRC and a refined IDC;

a non-refined IRC and a refined VRC;

a non-refined VRC and a refined IDC; and

a non-refined VRC and a refined IRC;

consolidating the refinements in a refined TMV; and

passing the refined TMV to a PMR lower in the hierarchy.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

recording refinements made by each PMR to each of the IDC, the IRC, and the VRC;

transferring the recorded refinements to a threat management control book (TMCB); and

marking the refined TMV as having been refined by each PMR making a refinement.

6. The method of claim 5 , further comprising:

updating a security operations policy of at least one PMR;

generating a superseding TMV based on the updated security operations policy; and

forwarding the superseding TMV to the TMDC.

7. A method of supplying a computer system with a threat management vector, the method comprising:

registering a computer system with a first threat management domain controller (TMDC); and

in the case that the computer system was previously registered with a second TMDC:

reporting to the first TMDC all threat management vector generation numbers (TMVGNs) received from the second TMDC;

propagating each TMVGN upward through a policy mediation region (PMR) hierarchy;

decomposing each TMVGN until an original source TMV is obtained;

regenerating a refined TMV from the original source TMV by propagating the TMV downward through the PMR hierarchy; and

forwarding the refined TMV to the first TMDC.

8. A program product stored on a computer-readable medium, which when executed, integrates a security operations policy into a threat management vector, the program product comprising:

program code for receiving at least one threat management vector (TMV) from a TMV generator, the TMV including a root vulnerability vector, at least one system vector, at least one system level vector, and a countermeasures payload including intrusion detection countermeasures (IDC), intrusion response countermeasures (IRC), and vulnerability remediation countermeasures (VRC);

program code for propagating the TMV through a hierarchy of policy mediation regions (PMRs), each PMR being operable to refine at least one of the IDC, the IRC, and the VRC;

program code for refining at least one of the IDC, the IRC, and the VRC to conform to a security operations policy of the PMR; and

program code for forwarding the refined TMV to a threat management domain controller (TMDC).