• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
Wednesday, July 30, 2025
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News Science

Illinois researchers add ‘time-travel’ feature to drives to fight ransomware attacks

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
May 29, 2019
in Science
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0
ADVERTISEMENT
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

IMAGE

Credit: The Grainger College of Engineering

One of the latest cyber threats involves hackers encrypting user files and then charging “ransom” to get them back. In the paper, “Project Almanac: A Time-Traveling Solid State Drive,” University of Illinois students Chance Coats and Xiaohao Wang and Assistant Professor Jian Huang from the Coordinated Science Laboratory look at how they can use the commodity storage devices already in a computer, to save the files without having to pay the ransom.

“The paper explains how we leverage properties of flash-based storage that currently exist in most laptops, desktops, mobiles, and even IoT devices” said Coats, a graduate student in electrical and computer engineering (ECE). “The motivation was a class of
malware called ransomware, where hackers will take your files, encrypt them, delete the unencrypted files and then demand money to give the files back.”

The flash-based, solid-state drives Coats mentioned are part of the storage system in most computers. When a file is modified on the computer, rather than getting rid of the old file version immediately, the solid-state drive saves the updated version to a new location. Those old versions are the key to thwarting ransomware attacks. If there is an attack, the tool discussed in the paper can be used to revert to a previous version of the file. The tool would also help in the case of a user accidentally deleting one of their own files.

Like any new tool, there is a trade-off.

“When you want to write new data, it has to be saved to a free block, or block that has already been erased,” said Coats. “Normally a solid-state drive would delete old versions in an effort to erase blocks in advance, but because our drive is keeping the old versions intentionally, it may have to move the old versions before writing new ones.”

Coats described this as a trade-off between retention duration and storage performance. If the parameters of their new tool are set to maintain data for too long, old and unnecessary versions will be kept and take up space on the storage device. As the device fills with old file versions, the system takes longer to respond to typical storage requests and performance degrades. On the other hand, if the parameters are set to a retention window that is too narrow, users would have a quicker response time, but they may not have all of their backup files saved should a malware attack take place.

To manage this trade-off, Huang and his students built in functionality for the tool to monitor and adjust these parameters dynamically. Despite the dynamic changes to system parameters, their tool guarantees data will be retained for at least three days. This allows users the option to backup their data onto other systems within the guaranteed time-period if they choose to do so.

The idea behind their tool has gained interest at an international level. The paper about this research was published at a top-tier system conference, EuroSys, this past spring. Coats represented the group at the conference.

“Our research group really enjoys building practical computer systems; this is a great practice for our students, they will experience how our research will generate real-world impact,” said Huang, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Illinois. “Moving forward, our group will look at the possibility of retaining user data in a storage device for a much longer time with lower performance overhead, and applying the time-traveling solid-state drive to wider applications such as systems debugging and digital forensics.”

###

Media Contact
Jian Huang
[email protected]

Related Journal Article

http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3302424.3303983

Tags: System Security/HackersTechnology/Engineering/Computer Science
Share12Tweet7Share2ShareShareShare1

Related Posts

Five or more hours of smartphone usage per day may increase obesity

July 25, 2019
IMAGE

NASA’s terra satellite finds tropical storm 07W’s strength on the side

July 25, 2019

NASA finds one burst of energy in weakening Depression Dalila

July 25, 2019

Researcher’s innovative flood mapping helps water and emergency management officials

July 25, 2019
Please login to join discussion

POPULAR NEWS

  • Blind to the Burn

    Overlooked Dangers: Debunking Common Myths About Skin Cancer Risk in the U.S.

    56 shares
    Share 22 Tweet 14
  • USF Research Unveils AI Technology for Detecting Early PTSD Indicators in Youth Through Facial Analysis

    42 shares
    Share 17 Tweet 11
  • Dr. Miriam Merad Honored with French Knighthood for Groundbreaking Contributions to Science and Medicine

    45 shares
    Share 18 Tweet 11
  • Engineered Cellular Communication Enhances CAR-T Therapy Effectiveness Against Glioblastoma

    35 shares
    Share 14 Tweet 9

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

Merbecovirus S2 Vaccines Trigger Cross-Reactive MERS Protection

Cracking the Code of Cancer Drug Resistance

Peptidoglycan Links Prevent Lysis in Gram-Negative Bacteria

  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.