Can We Stop Hacks Before They Start?

As you know, vulnerability to hacks has proven the great weakness of computer architecture, and the persistent vexation of I T professionals. But what can you do about it? What can anyone do about it? Security professionals keep refining their encryption standards, and hackers quickly figure out new ways to break the encryption.

Writing ever more sophisticated security algorithms is only a stop-gap measure, since many hackers now command such massive processing power, they can easily break the most complex codes.

Do we just have to accept our susceptibility to debilitating hacks, then? So it would seem.

Some computer security experts, though, aren’t ready to give up. A professor at the University of Michigan, in fact, claims to have developed a foolproof barrier to hackers.

MORPHEUS Weighs In

The professor, Dr. Todd Austin, says his team has produced a processor chip, called MORPHEUS, that hackers can’t defeat. The chip’s great advantage is speed. It encrypts and randomly rearranges its own code twenty times per second. This is thousands of times as fast as the most blisteringly brisk electronic hacking methods, and incomparably faster than any human hacker.

“Today’s approach of eliminating security bugs one by one is a losing proposition”, Austin says, “People are constantly writing code, and as long as there is new code, there will be new bugs and security vulnerabilities.”

“With MORPHEUS”, Austin said, “even if a hacker finds a bug, the information needed to exploit it vanishes fifty milliseconds later. It’s perhaps the closest thing to a future-proof secure system.”

Testing the New Chip

Of course, this sounds impressive in theory, but how does MORPHEUS work in practice? To answer this question, Austin’s team tested a DARPA-funded prototype. It thwarted every known form of control-flow attack, one of the most dangerous of all hacks, and one of the most commonly used.

The churn rate can be speeded or slowed depending on customer needs. Some customers will want to prioritize security; others will emphasize energy savings and speed of operation. Austin says he tested the chip at fifty milliseconds because it outstrips the speed of the fastest electronic hacks by thousands of times, but slows performance by only one percent.

The chip also incorporates an attack sensor. It maintains watch against potential hacks, and accelerates the churn rate if detects an impending attack.

Austin and his team plan to market MORPHEUS as a commercial product.

Where do we go from here?

If the MORPHEUS chip is all that Todd Austin says it is, then most of our worries about computer security will soon be a thing of the past. Hackers can never keep pace with ever-changing code arrangement, and so all hacking attempts will be futile.

Of course, this doesn’t mean we can afford negligence with passwords, nor that we can safely open attachments sent by unfamiliar parties. Still, with reasonable caution about computer use, we can be certain our data is secure.

If MORPHEUS performs as advertised, we need never fear hackers again.

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