Intel's Network Manageability Engine to fight viruses

At the third day of the IDF, Intel presented its Network Manageability Engine. This is a way to protect a computer network against the spread of viruses and worms. The chip giant believes viruses that defeat firewalls and circumvent anti-virus software will become a great problem in future and has been working on a solution.

Intel proposed a new platform level solution that can dynamically control the functionality of the network hardware based on network activity. The manageability engine monitors the number of connections opened per second and will shutdown the NIW once the software is trying to open more connections than a certain threshold determines is appropriate.

The heuristics Intel employs in order to detect virus-like network activity seem to be very accurate and effective. Justin Rattner stated that under tests looking at 8000 worms and various other applications, the heuristics caught all every single virus. The worms studied include all known worms as well as custom worms developed by Intel to test the hardware.

More details and photos at AnandTech