In a project funded and tested by the US Defense Department's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a team of CSAIL investigators is developing a new way to defend against hackers.
Collaborators including Martin Rinard, Jeff Perkins, and postdoctoral fellow Stelios Sidiroglou have created a system that allows websites to remain up and running during a cyberattack. The system does so by monitoring normal program behaviors and not allowing the program to deviate from them, even when infiltrated. DARPA tested the effectiveness of the method by hiring unaffiliated internet security experts to stage an attack. The trials proved MIT's system to be promisingly effective. Read more about it in this piece from the MIT News Office.