Computer scientist fights threat of ‘botnets’

Most network-intrusion systems today are comparing traffic against a database, collected by hand, of previously recognized attack signatures. The innovation with Nemean is a method to automatically generate intrusion signatures, making the detection process faster and more precise.

In a test comparing Nemean against a current technology on the market, both had a high detection rate of malicious signatures — 99.9 percent for Nemean and 99.7 for the comparison technology. However, Nemean had zero false positives, compared to 88,000 generated by the other technology.

“The technology we’re developing here really has the potential to transform the face of network security,” says Barford, whose research is supported by the National Science Foundation, the Army Research Office and the Department of Homeland Security. “Our objective is to build this company into a world leader in network securty solutions.”

Computer scientist fights threat of ‘botnets’ (Oct. 31, 2007)