A startup funded by the U.S. government's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is ready to emerge from stealth mode with hardware and software-based technologies to fight the rapid spread of malicious rootkits.

By Ryan Naraine
April 24, 2006

Komoku, of College Park, Md., plans to ship in the summer a beta of Gamma, a new rootkit detection tool that builds on a prototype used by several sensitive U.S. government departments to find operating system abnormalities that may be linked to malicious rootkit activity....

The company's Copilot prototype is a high-assurance PCI card capable of monitoring the host's memory and file system at the hardware level.

Gamma, meanwhile, is a separate, software-only clone of Copilot that will target businesses interested in a low-assurance tool to protect laptops and PCs.

Komoku has partnered with security vendor Symantec to handle disinfection and restoration after rootkits and other sophisticated forms of malware are detected. Symantec's LiveState product combines with Copilot and Gamma to restore the system to its original state.