Fighting malware and spam

Malware and anti-virus on 64-bit platforms

Myles Jordan Computer Associates

Malware and anti-virus on 64-bit platforms

With the approach of consumer level 64-bit computing platforms (ie. Intel's Itanium and AMD's SledgeHammer), the computer security industry will soon need to understand what implications 64-bit platforms will have to anti-virus and all types of malware.

This paper will discuss what place Intel and AMD see the their respective platforms having in future computing markets, and what relevance they will have to the AV industry, now and in the future. It will also give an overview of the Itanium architecture as a next generation, EPIC (Explicitly Parallel Instruction-set Computing) processor, with particular emphasis on a comparison to AMD's extended, 64-bit, x86-based instruction set in the SledgeHammer cpu. Finally, this paper will discuss what direct effect the Itanium and the SledgeHammer's architecture will have on the AV industry and virus writers alike.