The world’s first black box to record hacker activity and provide real-time alerts was unveiled by a Korean engineer Thursday.

Professor Kim Jong-man of Georgia Institute of Technology unveiled the black box developed by his company Soteria Inc. Along with the black box, the company also revealed the Web-based anti-hacker system Stealth Shield.

The black box system, the concept for which is said to have come from aviation black boxes, was developed by Kim’s team on a budget of $1 million, the company said.

As with flight recorders, the data stored in the device cannot be altered.

According to Kim, the company’s black box is the world’s first hacker activity tracking system that works by connecting an external hardware to computer systems. Kim and his team are currently waiting for the U.S. patent.

“By connecting the black box to the computer and installing the software provided, hacker attacks can be monitored in real-time,” Kim said. He added that the black box can visualize the recorded hacker activity.

Kim also said that Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, police agency’s cybercrime unit and the Agency for Defense Development have shown interest in using the device.

The company expects the system to prove useful in government agencies, banks and other organizations commonly targeted by hackers. Citing the product’s design feature that prevents the user from completely deleting the data stored in the device, Soteria officials also said that the black box would be useful in organizations that need to store and protect data over extended periods such as hospitals.

“It is meaningful that the world’s first security-related hardware-software solution has been developed,” professor Lee Jung-hee of University of Texas at San Antonio, who worked on the black box with Kim, said.

The company estimates the market for the black box to be about $85 million, and the market for Stealth Shield to be about $200 million.

By Choi He-suk (cheesuk@heraldcorp.com)