IF MALWARE had a poster child it would be Stuxnet, the computer worm that unleashed chaos on Iran's nuclear centrifuges in 2010. We eventually learned that it was created by the US government, but for a long time its origins were a mystery.
That is nearly always the case with cyberattacks, but not for much longer. Plans to map the family tree of each piece of malware could help trace worms back to source by spotting resemblances to existing ones (see "Mapping malware's genome to fight future attacks"). This could reveal what the worm might do - and, crucially, who wrote it.
Cybercriminals are the obvious targets of such technology. But knowing that you're more likely to be unmasked and embarrassed might also give certain governments pause for thought before they unleash their latest dastardly creation.
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