Hewlett-Packard has demonstrated how computer virus technology can be turned around to protect business networks against hackers and worms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
HP revealed this week that it had used the approach to protect thousands of machines on its network two days before the Blaster worm struck.<\/p>\n
The code, developed by HP’s security research labs in Bristol, effectively saved the company from an infection that cost organisations around the world hundreds of millions of pounds to fix.<\/p>\n
Although the technology is still at an early stage, HP sees it as a potential solution to the difficulties companies face ensuring all the machines on their network are patched, often at short notice, against the latest vulnerabilities.<\/p>\n
Martin Sadler, lab director at HP laboratories in Bristol, said, “Tracking kit in any large corporation is difficult.<\/p>\n
HP has 250,000 devices connected to its network that we know of.<\/p>\n
But we do not necessarily know where everything is.”<\/p>\n
HP began developing the technology two years ago, when it deployed virus-like code to protect its IT systems from the Nimda virus.<\/p>\n
The code delivered a pop-up message to every unpatched machine on the firm’s network, urging the user to take action.<\/p>\n
In the case of Blaster, instead of a pop-up warning, the security labs arranged for a code to be pumped out to every IP address on the company’s network that shut down any machine that had not been patched.<\/p>\n
Some users were upset but the code protected HP from infection.<\/p>\n
Sadler said the technology was still at an early stage, and there were still many questions that had to be resolved before the technique could be used commercially.<\/p>\n
Companies using the technology would have to weigh-up the risk of virus-like code designed to protect against new vulnerabilities falling into the wrong hands and being used to develop malicious code with devastating payloads.<\/p>\n
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