Advanced Micro Devices and Intel plan to soon release technology that will allow processors to stop many attacks before they occur.
Execution Protection by AMD, technology contained in AMD"s Athlon 64 chips, prevents a buffer overflow, a common method used to attack computers. A buffer overflow essentially overwhelms a computer"s defense systems and then inserts a malicious program in memory that the processor subsequently executes. With Execution Protection, data in the buffer can only be read and, therefore, is prevented from doing its dirty work, John Morris, director of marketing at AMD, said in an interview Thursday at the Consumer Electronics Show here.
"Now in current processors, any programs that go into the memory overflow can be executed," he said. "With this, the system only allows read-only in the buffer. It will not execute." The malicious program is then disposed harmlessly when the PC is turned off, he said. The circuitry is already inside existing Athlon 64 chips, but it can"t be activated yet. That will occur when Microsoft releases Service Pack 2 for Windows XP early in the second quarter. By then, AMD also will have a catchy marketing name for the technology, Morris said. Intel is putting a similar technology in Prescott, an enhanced version of the Pentium 4 expected next month, according to computer manufacturers. Intel declined to comment.