SOAP, or “Simple Object Access Protocol”, lets different operating systems “talk” to each other using Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and Extensible Markup Language (XML) — the same stuff that brings you all those really great RSS feeds. Windows 7 doesn’t “speak” Linux, but both can understand the various web protocols — and by leveraging the World Wide Web to act as a translator, two different operating systems are able to communicate.
Great stuff, right? It most definitely is! But a protocol like SOAP has often been relegated to the back burner due to a lack of applicability. All that’s about to change, though, due to a stunning breakthrough announced today from a heretofore unknown research lab in central Asia. Researchers and developers have created an exciting new use for SOAP — it’s going to clean up the Internet.
When Windows detects a new form of malware or some other problem, Linux and Mac systems are often targeted with the same malware. Past procedures have relied heavily on anti-virus and other security vendors to discover the malware, develop countermeasures, research how far it has spread, and whether other operating systems are affected. As one can imagine, this can take time — quite a bit of time, in most cases. By the time the full extent of the attack is known, the malware has done its damage, leaving cybercriminals richer (not to mention users — many of whom barely know how to spell “virus” — stuck with trying to clean up the mess).
But thanks to recently developed Web Activated Sensing Heueristics, or WASH, operating systems will now be able to rapidly share information about threats using the SOAP protocol. Whenever a new threat is detected — regardless of the operating system involved — spreading the word about a threat and cleaning it from all systems will simply be a matter of WASHing with SOAP.
For more information about this amazing breakthrough, click on this link.
Hope your April 1 was a nice as mine was… 
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