ACMA extends Zombie catching service to more ISPs

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 26 October 2006 12:53

Your IT - Home IT

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is to extend to additional ISPs a trial service that detects zombie infected PCs connected to the Internet and alerts their owners.
The initial trial commenced in November 2005 with six ISPs - OptusNet, Pacific Internet, Telstra BigPond, Uecomm, West Australian Networks and WestNet - and will now be extended to include Access Net Australia, AustarNet, Bekkers, Chariot, iiNet, OzEmail, Powerup, ihug, SeNet, Internode, Agile, Neighbourhood Cable, iPrimus, Primusonline, Hotkey, AOL, Reynolds Technology, Riverland Internet and Soul.

The scheme, the Australian Internet Security Initiative, operates by forwarding information on 'zombie' computers (computers that have been infected by a computer virus or other form of malware) to the participating ISPs who then contact their customers to assist them to 'disinfect' their computer.

According to the ACMA "Experience from the trial indicates that the vast majority of customers are unaware that their computers are infected by malware and are grateful for the assistance in making their computer secure." It claims that Zombie computers are now the main source of spam on the Internet.

The ACMA has given no details of what technology it uses to drive the service. Earlier this month BT, in the UK announced that it was implementing what it said was the world's first fully-automated 'spam buster' system  designed to detect and block professional spammers and 'botnet'-infected customers (zombies) using the BT broadband network.

The technology underpinning this system, Content Forensics from StreamShield Networks, is able to scan the millions of e-mails traversing BT's network every day and provide detailed reports on the location and size of spam-related problems.

StreamShield claims that a key to doing this is its silicon-based StreamScan technology which gives the product the power to scan the million of messages in a large service provider's network, such as BT's.