Zimperium has unveiled software that "learns" how the smartphone on which it is installed "behaves" under normal conditions, in order to better understand and deal with security threats.
The San Francisco-based company's application is called zIPS (Intrusion Prevention System) and uses machine learning technology to form a "picture" of how your computer normally works. This allows it to "perceive" strange changes in it, which, in turn, makes it easier to detect and respond to attacks - including threats originating from unprotected Wi-Fi networks.
As pointed out in an MIT Technology Review article, this technique has long been used to detect malware on PCs, but its use has been difficult on smartphones, as they are exposed to a large number of wireless networks, resulting in new security issues.
The zIPS application is initially intended for corporate use, but a consumer version is expected to be released in the near future. It is noted that, as clarified by the company's CEO and founder, Yitzhak Abraham, this software works whether the user is online or offline, and can provide protection against "suspicious" applications (which can make changes to themselves), as well as various types of attacks via networks.
As Abraham (a former researcher for the Israeli military and a white hat hacker for Samsung) told MIT Technology Review, attacks like “man-in-the-middle” (where a hacker “intercepts” data sent from one user to another) are not detected by most antivirus systems for mobile devices, as most of them are designed to look for evidence of files that point to known malicious code. zIPS, on the other hand, is “trained” to recognize attacks using both known malware and known techniques.
Zimperium, whose advisors include the famous hacker Kevin Mitnick, hopes that its software will one day reach the point of being used in a multitude of machines, even reaching "smart" home appliances ("smart" TVs, refrigerators, etc.)
Source: naftemporiki.gr
