Cisco Patent Granted: Control Flow Monitoring and Enforcement

ChangeBridge: Patent Grants - Networking (H04L)

Published March 24th, 2026

Detected March 27th, 2026

Summary

The USPTO has granted Cisco Technology, Inc. a patent (US12585771B2) for learned control flow monitoring and enforcement of unobserved transitions in computer instructions. The patent covers techniques for generating control flow diagrams to monitor process execution and classify transitions as safe or unsafe.

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What changed

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has granted patent US12585771B2 to Cisco Technology, Inc. This patent covers novel techniques for monitoring and enforcing control flow in computer instruction executions. Specifically, it involves learning a control flow graph for a process, using it to monitor execution, identifying unobserved transitions, classifying these transitions as safe or unsafe, and performing actions based on the classification.

This patent grant signifies a new intellectual property asset for Cisco in the area of cybersecurity and system monitoring. While not a regulatory rule imposing obligations on other entities, it represents an advancement in technology that could influence future cybersecurity product development and standards. Companies operating in the technology sector, particularly those involved in network security and software development, should be aware of this patented technology as it may impact their own innovation and product roadmaps.

Source document (simplified)

← USPTO Patent Grants

Learned control flow monitoring and enforcement of unobserved transitions

Grant US12585771B2 Kind: B2 Mar 24, 2026

Assignee

Cisco Technology, Inc.

Inventors

Andrew Zawadowskiy, Vincent E. Parla, Oleg Bessonov

Abstract

Techniques and systems described herein relate to monitoring executions of computer instructions on computing devices based on learning and generating a control flow directed graph. The techniques and systems include determining a learned control flow diagram for a process on a computing system and monitoring execution of the process on the computing system using the control flow diagram. An unobserved transition is determined based on the learned control flow diagram and the unobserved transition is classified as safe or unsafe based on a monitoring component analysis. An action is performed based on the safety classification and the learned control flow diagram.

CPC Classifications

G06F 21/566 G06F 8/433 G06F 9/44589 G06F 11/3616 G06F 21/51 G06F 21/53 G06F 21/54 G06F 21/552 G06F 21/577 G06F 2221/033 H04L 63/1416 H04L 63/1425 H04L 63/1433