US Patent 11874921 Digital protection that travels with data

The present disclosure relates to a system and method for performing anti-malware scanning of data files that is data-centric rather than device-centric. In the example, a plurality of computing devices are connected via a network. An originating device creates or first receives data, and scans the data for malware. After scanning the data, the originating device creates and attaches to the data a metadata record including the results of the malware scan. The originating device may also scan the data for malware contextually-relevant to a second device.