US Patent 7647636 Generic RootKit detector

A generic RootKit detector is disclosed that identifies when a malware, commonly known as RootKit, is resident on a computer. In one embodiment, the generic RootKit detector performs a method that compares the properties of different versions of a library used by the operating system to provide services to an application program. In this regard, when a library is loaded into memory, an aspect of the generic RootKit detector compares two versions of the library; a potentially infected version in memory and a second version stored in a protected state on a storage device. If certain properties of the first version of the library are different from the second version, a determination is made that a RootKit is infection the computer.