InZero: The unhackable, virus proof device

InZero Internet Security

An American technology start-up claim to have developed a device that can make a computer totally protected from cyber-attacks.

After the news that even Google has become a victim of internet hackers, it has become glaringly obvious that the current stock of internet security software available to us is not enough to keep the cyber-criminals at bay.

The problem is that the bad guys always seem to be five steps ahead of the good guys in a game of cat and mouse that has left the cat scratching his head over what to do next, whilst the mice keep themselves very, very busy. 85 percent of companies and agencies surveyed by the Ponemon Institute, a research firm, have suffered security breaches and data losses over the previous year - roughly one-quarter of which involved hackers. The losses resulting from such crime is thought to be around $1 trillion every year, so anybody that comes up with the ultimate weapon to stop these hackers dead in their tracks can expect a massive payday.

Enter InZero Systems. The Herndon (Va.) start-up that claims to have built a hack-proof hardware-based system capable of doing the impossible - shutting the door to all intruders.

"There isn't a way to circumvent it"

As reported by Business Week, so far everyone who has tested the device has failed to get past it. Its approach has been tested by the military's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and several companies that specialize in finding gaps in computer security.

"It was very secure," says former DARPA director Anthony J. Tether, who bought 10 devices to test just before he left the agency in early 2009. "As best we can tell, there isn't a way to circumvent it."

The device's approach was first dreamed up in 2002 by Ukrainian computer engineer Oleksiy Shevchenko, whilst trying to help out a friend experiencing some PC internet security problems. Instead of simply installing software that seeks out and tries to destroy all viruses and intruders one by one, Shevchenko set up some hardware that could act like a second computer (or "sandbox") that can sit between the internet and the vulnerable computer in question.

No bigger than a paperback book

Put simply, the sandbox acts like a sponge in-between you and the internet that can soak up any viruses and hacking attempts before they have chance to reach your computer, and because the InZero is read-only it cannot be changed or controlled by a hacker or virus.

InZero CEO Louis R. Hughes offers his own analogy, that of a patient with an unknown disease quarantined behind a glass wall. "Our device is the equivalent of that glass wall," he says.

The idea of a second computer that can be wiped and rebuilt acting as a screen between another machine and the web isn't new, but InZero differs because it doens't have to be constantly "wiped down" and is no bigger than your average paperback book.

Hughes, former president of General Motors' international operations and of Lockheed Martin, was won over by the device after watching a number of expert hackers fail to break the InZero. He took Shevchenko with him to the US and put millions of his own dollars into the creating a new US company, InZero, making himself CEO and appointing Shevchenko as chief technology officer.

Convincing the US government

As Business Week reports, since then the company has filed additional patents and spent several years simplifying the steps a user must take to operate the device.

The company look set to take the internet security market by storm and hopes to market a family of devices for PCs, servers, and entire networks, with prices starting in the low hundreds. But in two or three years, the hardware could be embedded into laptops adding as little as $25 to hardware costs.

However, InZero still needs to pass the toughest of all tests - convincing the US government that its engineers haven't built in a back door for spies, "We have to show that nothing will be reported to Putin," says Alexander Pyntikov, Alexander V. Pyntikov, a top Soviet Union government innovation official-turned-entrepreneur who is also chief operating officer at InZero.

Check out the video to hear the company describe exactly how they plan on stopping anyone planning to get past the InZero device.

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Daniel Jones

Daniel is a Politics and Philosophy graduate from Cardiff University where he also worked as a section editor on the award winning student newspaper. After university he joined an IT support company where he was a B2B online writer. He loves anything to do with sport and joined GDS in July 2009.

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