Intel demonstrated technology these days that’s designed to produce larger protection for computers from malware and alternative threats by taking advantage of options designed into the processor.
Intel showed off McAfee DeepSafe at the Intel Developer Forum, providing the primary official glimpse into how the corporate plans to integrate the technology and experience it got from the US$7.68 billion acquisition of McAfee it announced last year and completed earlier this year.
The technology sits below the operating system level and permits McAfee to develop what Intel calls “hardware-assisted” security product. The aim is to simply detect and block attacks, together with stealthy advanced persistent threats, which might build their well past ancient antivirus and alternative security software and which regularly have rootkits that are embedded into the operating system.
For example, McAfee researchers are able to stop a previously unknown rootkit known as Agony from infecting a system in real time, Intel said.
“Security threats are moving down (into the pc system) to the purpose where they produce a worm that users click on, however it is also infecting the operating system, the virtualization layer, and even software layers below that,” Vimal Solanki, senior vp of company strategy at Intel, told ZDNet Asia’s sister web site CNET.
“When you use below the operating system level you get a singular advantage purpose,” he said. “You will monitor how the operating system is behaving and if there are any threats trying to infect the OS itself.”
Solanki said he couldn’t give more technical details at now, however said product using the DeepSafe technology are expected later this year.