A team of researchers have developed new software that will be able to hunt down and destroy malware within computer systems.
In addition, the software will be able to repair all the damages caused by the destroyed malware.
Making the software more amazing is its ability to recognize previous invaders and stops them from returning into the computer system, preventing potential infection.
The software, named Advanced Adaptive Applications or A3, was developed by a team of computer scientists from the University of Utah.
A3 is a software suite that has its operations supported by a virtual computer that is emulating a regular PC. The security system has been given the task of protecting that major components of the virtual machine, with functions such as continuous monitoring of the virtual machine's operating system and applications.
The researchers that developed the A3 said that they will be keeping the code of the software open source, while believing that A3 is viable to be released commercially.
The anti-virus software currently available in the market today is able to detect all kinds of malware that enter a computer system through a comparison with a database that contains known threats. Codes are compared to check whether certain software or flash drives contain viruses.
The A3, however, does things differently. Made up of a group of debugging applications that are running simultaneously, the system checks the virtual machine constantly, monitoring if any suspicious activities arise. This allows the A3 to detect viruses and malware, whether already included in a database of known viruses and malware or newly developed or encountered.
The A3 is able to do this because it can detect when an anomaly occurs within the regular operations of a PC, comparing the status of the infected state of the PC to its clean state that it was monitoring.
Upon detection, the software then moves to clean the PC of the virus and will try to repair any damaged codes in the system. The software also takes note of what the virus did to the system and how it looked like, which would allow the A3 to prevent the same virus from gaining entry in the protected computer system.
The A3, however, is not targeting to be used by home PCs and laptops. Instead, the A3 was designed to primarily offer protection to servers and enterprise computers, and for military applications. This is evident in the fact one of the A3's major advantages is that it can repair damages caused by threats without the need to power down servers.
Eric Eide, the leader of the team of computer scientists, however, believes that the A3 could help consumer devices in the future.
