Curtin researchers have developed a security software shield that can prevent distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, such as the 2016 Australian census website crash and the 2016 October shutdown of major US websites.<\/p>\n
The software, dubbed the Probability Engine for Identifying Malicious Activity (PEIMA), is able to reduce DDoS attacks \u2013 where hackers swamp a computer system with artificially generated traffic to crash a server \u2013 by 90 to 96 per cent, rendering them effectively harmless.<\/p>\n
The team behind the idea, comprising Associate Professor Mihai Lazarescu<\/a>, Dr Sonny Pham<\/a>, PhD candidate Stefan Prandl<\/a> and Dr Sie Teng Soh<\/a> in collaboration with Professor Subhash Kak<\/a> from Oklahoma State University, is confident the software could prevent these attacks, which reportedly cost targeted organisations an average of US$2.5 million per incident*\u00a0<\/sup>and can be crippling for small to medium-sized businesses.<\/p>\n