Anti-malware CPUs may be in your future as threats grow

Binghamton University researchers are looking to build anti-malware into computer processors to help add another layer of defense to computers.

The researchers will use a $275,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to study how hardware can help protect computers and plan to modify a computer's CPU by adding logic to check for anomalies while running a program like Microsoft Word, according to Nov. 7 public release.

The goal is to use low complexity machine learning to classify malware from normal programs so if the hardware spots an anomaly it will alert more robust software programs to inspect the issue.

"This project holds the promise of significantly impacting an area of critical national need to help secure systems against the expanding threats of malware," Dmitry Ponomarev, professor of computer science at Binghamton University, State University of New York said in the release.