Engineers at The University of Texas at Austin and North Carolina State University have found an additional line of defense to detect threats posed by malware that do not rely on the detection and protection provided by existing anti-virus software programs. Their method identifies the presence of malware in large-scale embedded computer systems by monitoring power usage and identifying unusual surges as signs of unwelcome security threats. The study was led by Shijia Wei, a Ph.D. candidate in the Cockrell School's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering; his adviser, assistant professor Mohit Tiwari; and colleagues, professor Michael Orshansky and associate professor Andreas Gerstlauer. For more, watch this video or read this article.
