Computer-security analysts have long since learned to hate â??botnetsâ?: clusters of computers, infected with worms or Trojan-horse programs, that are taken over by outside users. After all, botnets can do plenty of awful things: They trawl for passwords and credit-card numbers, fire off spam, and propagate automatically.
But now Paul Barford, a computer scientist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, says he may soon be able to stop botnets in their tracks. Mr. Barfordâ??s company, Nemean Networks, is developing software that can identify 99.9 percent of â??malicious signaturesâ? associated with botnet attacks, according to Roland Piquepaille of ZDNet.