A framework and associated methods for monitoring, reporting, and
notifying with respect to security protection levels on a computer. For
each security threat, a baseline level of protection is defined. A schema
is configured to define fields usable by a security provider to indicate
a level of protection provided by the security provider. Using the
schema, the fields may be stored in a repository. Each time a security
provider changes states with respect to level of protection, the
appropriate field or fields in the repository are updated. Consumer
applications may read from the repository at any time to obtain
information that indicates the level of protection. Applications may be
informed when data within the repository changes.