IN THE MATRIX, the famous "bullet time" effect
showed how Keanu Reeves's character Neo was able to sway out of the path
of incoming bullets, as time appeared to slow. Now the film has
inspired engineers to develop a way to cope with cyber attacks on
crucial infrastructure, such as electricity grids, water utilities and
banking networks.
The idea, from security engineers at
the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma, is to slow down internet traffic,
including malicious data, to give networks time to deal with attacks. To
do this, when a cyber attack has been sensed, an algorithm sends
hyper-speed signals accelerating ahead of the malicious data packets to
mobilise defences.
