Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

Alternative medicine: Future virus fighting

Nov 23, 2003 11:04PM PST
Viruses and worms are likely to be with us for the foreseeable future - but how will the methods used to fight them develop?

Although viruses have been with us for 20 years and worms considerably longer, there has been remarkably little movement in the way they are written, detected and removed. In general, an unknown writer identifies a vulnerability in a common system, writes software to exploit it and releases it to his chums and the antivirus companies, sometimes into the wild. The virus is analysed, a unique pattern within it is identified and the antivirus companies release the update to their customers.

Hardware scanning is an old idea that is constantly reinvented. One of the latest demonstrations comes from Washington University, where John Lockwood and his students have developed a device called the Field Programmable Port Extender (FPX) that can scan incoming bitstreams at up to 2.4 gigabits per second. This is fast enough for the device to be used much like a firewall, monitoring all traffic at the point it enters or leaves an organisation.

More (2 pages) http://insight.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020415,39118047,00.htm

Discussion is locked