Anyone who has flown on a commercial flight, crossed an international border, visited a government building, or attended a concert knows you’re not getting inside until you pass the security guards.
Placing guards outside the gates is a centuries-old defense strategy used to protect people, places, and things from those who seek to do harm.
Like those guards, Idaho National Laboratory’s (INL’s) newest network anomaly detection technology —VigilantShield — is designed to keep viruses, malware, and other malicious software from invading critical communication networks.
“VigilantShield isn’t the first product in the market to fight against cyber threats,” said INL researcher Matt Anderson. However, VigilantShield is the first to fight threats at the network level by using machine learning to sequester malicious network packets — digital containers filled with data — before they reach their intended destination, such as a cell phone or laptop. The ability to capture and sequester malicious data in transit opens a new front in the cyber battlefield.