Immune system for cyberspace

Abstract

There is legitimate concern that, within the next few years, the Internet will provide a fertile medium for new breeds of computer viruses capable of spreading orders of magnitude faster than they do today. To counter this threat, we have developed an immune system for computers that senses the presence of a previously unknown pathogen, and then within minutes automatically derives and deploys a prescription for detecting and removing it. The system is being integrated with a commercial anti-virus product, IBM AntiVirus, and is expected to be offered as a pilot in late 1997.