Customers squeezed as ISPs pull trigger on viruses

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The Dirty Secret

We've beaten the security problems with Windows pretty hard, and, for the most part, Microsoft deserved it. However, we don't mention how these problems develop for many home users and it's not all email attachments.

We read about the email trojans and so forth but people are catching on to them, slowly but surely. And most ISPs are starting to block them pretty well as the article mentions. Some pre-customer filtering and a limit on the number of emails sent per day seem to be the most effective methods.

The new thing is to distribute a semi-useful program, like a P2P program or an 'extra' on an adult site, that's laden with scummy payloads that piggyback onto the sort-of legit main program. The goal is to create a network of zombies that can spam, do DDoS or capture other information. These programs often leave ports open for exploitation by 'unauthorized' callers as well.

It's pretty funny, in a sad way, to see someone get their system 'cleaned up' only to go back and install a popular P2P program that begins with a 'K' and bypass or disable security to be able to view certain sites and be right back to where they were within days.

Posted by: jfrankcarr   Posted on: 03/17/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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