It is 0530 UTC, 25 January 2003. A computer worm named Slammer has
just unleashed one of the most devastating attacks on the internet
ever. Within minutes, it infects nearly 90 per cent of vulnerable
computers. Major net links break down, ATM machines fail and airlines
have to cancel flights.
What was impressive about Slammer was the overwhelming speed of
infection. There was no chance to intervene. Six years on, our
defences are little better.
Scott Coull of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and
Boleslaw Szymanski of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy,
New York, want to change that. They have devised a system to combat
highly virulent, malicious worms by embedding defence mechanisms in
key parts of the internet - akin to endowing it with an immune system.
To understand the limitations of the current strategies, imagine
there's an outbreak of a biological virus. The major airports in the
world decide not to let people disembark from planes flying in from
an infected region but instead let the aircraft take off for other
parts of the world.
<http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327215.000-internet-immune-system-could-block-viruses.html>Link
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Posted By johannes to
<http://www.monochrom.at/english/2009/08/internet-immune-system-could-block.htm>monochrom
at 8/18/2009 01:31:00 PM
