The Certificate Authority Security Council (CASC), an industry group comprising companies that issue and manage security certificates, wants to encourage the practice of code signing. The idea is that application developers can digitally sign their software and obtain a security certificate from a Certificate Authority (CA). If hackers later compromise the application and use it to spread malware, the CA could revoke the certificate, which would prevent the malicious software from working.
The group is currently working on developing standards for code signing. Once those standards are in the place, the practice could become more widespread.