Zombie hunting

Our federal government has finally decided to do something about the scourge that is spam by launching an initiative which has been designed to identify all virus-infected computers in this country.

Considering that more than 60 percent of all global spam is relayed via these zombies, the Australian Media and Communications Authority is doing an important job. According to Helen Coonan, our Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts:

“Computer users are often unaware that their computers are being controlled by others and used for malicious purposes.”

Often unaware? Try almost always unaware. Your typical Telstra, Optus or Dodo customer has absolutely no idea about what’s required to have their computer running safely and often couldn’t give a rats arse about the problems they cause others anyway, once their computer is infected.

Just how many of these “mum and dad” (as our Prime Minister likes to call them) internet users can answer “yes” to the following questions:

• Is your anti-virus software up to date?
• Are you running a personal firewall?
• Are your operating system security patches up to date?
• Is your anti-spyware software up to date?
• Do you run a spam filter?

How many will even have an idea of what I’m talking about?

Worse still, some of these people are actually trying to run legitimate businesses with their sub $30/month plans. True to their form, they will then hire backyarders to configure their mail and web servers, contributing to the vast number of open proxies out there.

While the zombie initiative is a step in the right direction, why can’t Telstra, Optus and Dodo offer what IINET already give their customers: advanced spam filtering, virus protection and port blocking of their entire network?

Posted in Business, Email, Rants, Security by Ivan