University of Michigan develops computer chip with cyber security sufficient to resist hostile hackers

April 29, 2021
Not one of the cyber security researchers was able to break into Morpheus because the computer chip changes its coding when it senses an attack.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – To build a computer chip with cyber security sufficient to resist hacking, University of Michigan students took inspiration from a structure uniquely designed to stop intruders: the human immune system. Government Technology reports. Continue reading original article

The Military & Aerospace Electronics take:

29 April 2021 -- A professor and a group of graduate students at Michigan spent six years building Morpheus, a computer chip that sought to defeat the sort of cyber attacks that threaten Americans every day, from banking and financial systems to computer security and medical data.

The University of Michigan chip was put to the test from last June through August in a competition called Finding Exploits To Thwart Tampering (FETT) from the U.S. Department of Defense.

More than 500 hackers were offered up to $50,000 to try to crack Morpheus in a mock medical database. None succeeded. Because of Morpheus' success in thwarting the hackers, experts plan to turn the chip into a commercial venture that can benefit government, industry, and perhaps consumers.

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John Keller, chief editor
Military & Aerospace Electronics

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