http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/security/35 ... fected-pcs

ISPs would never go for it IMO, and this wouldn't be a hit with the customers:



Especially not in the UK at the minute

ISP. I thought the P was for provider, not police.

Rest of world: Microsoft should piss off and clean-up their code.

Corrected

If the ISP discovers that a machine is part of a bot net then maybe it should disconnect the machine and write a letter to the customer to inform them. Though without connection how could they update AV definitions. Maybe throttling the connection is the best solution. Though since all the machines affected are windows machines and many ISPs have AV as part of their bundle maybe they should check why a user has not updated their definitions.

It sounds like a good idea until you look at the practicalities. It wouldn't be popular and would be hard to work.

Seems like their passing the buck, and onto someone who'd have an even harder job in making things safe and secure.

Linux and OS X aren't much better.

Conficker, for example, used a security hole which had been patched 5 months earlier, but still went on to become one of the biggest viruses of all times (and one I am still fighting, because the previous service provider here never applied a patch to any of the machines between 2003 and 2009!).

Microsoft aren't perfect and they are the prime target, although Adobe seems to be vying for that crown at the moment...

If the machines were quarantined until they were cleaned up (only allowed access to the ISPs clean-up service, all other traffic in and out blocked), then it would save a lot of time, trouble and money on the net...

I agree, the ISPs shouldn't, generally, be police. But if they spot botnet or virus related traffic coming from their network, they should be duty bound to deal with it, like I am responsible for doing it on my network...

That was what I was thinking of.


+1 If the ISP knows about it then they should do something about it. It affects other users.