There has been attempts to make hardware anti-virus but apparently it never took off.
By googling a little bit, I found the Xnet OS Protector and the Saming NetGuard and PCGuard but their descriptions look very dubious.
![alt text](../../I/static/images/b6f8307c0c8f1dffbc57bca2107665ed59fe65acf57bfa81142e27a105f827aa.jpg)
They claim to do stuff that are barely possible, especially at the times these cards were created (mid-90, I think):
- The most powerful feature is that the protected system files can be
recovered even when the CMOS setting is corrupted.
- Simple to install and use, no command, no programming, no script required.
- Protected data does not occupy any useable Hard Disk space, that means no other storage
media and devices are required.
- Recovers corrupted OS, software and eliminates virus, spyware, hackers with well protected disk image. As an option, the CMOS (that is, BIOS) setting can be protected as well.
- Recovery of 40GB data can be done in a minimum of 3 seconds but can take upto 8 seconds
- Can protect up to 2000GB of hard disk data.
If that was really possible, we'd all know about it and they would plenty of such cards on the market.
I couldn't find either reviews of these cards by reputable websites. I think we can definitely say it's snake oil...
Sadly the company is now defunct. I have two of their Open Firewall USB keys around here. One is basically bricked, unless I figure out how to SSH into it ;) – 0xC0000022L – 2011-04-13T00:50:49.003