Researchers want to use hardware to fight computer viruses
Fighting computer viruses isn't just for software anymore. Binghamton University researchers will use a grant from the National Science Foundation to study how hardware can help protect computers too.
"The impact will potentially be felt in all computing domains, from mobile to clouds," said Dmitry Ponomarev, professor of computer science at Binghamton University, State University of New York. Ponomarev is the principal investigator of a project titled "Practical Hardware-Assisted Always-On Malware Detection."
More than 317 million pieces of new malware—computer viruses, spyware, and other malicious programs—were created in 2014 alone, according to work done by Internet security teams at Symantec and Verizon. Malware is growing in complexity, with crimes such as digital extortion (a hacker steals files or locks a computer and demands a ransom for decryption keys) becoming large avenues of cyber attack.
