FTC Targets Spam Zombies

[ovi]

In the effort to crack down on 'Spam Zombies', the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has issued a statement to ISPs to take a stronger stance on compromised computers used to send out spam. The majority of spam on the Internet is being sent by computers that have been infected by a worm. When your computer has been infected, your computer will immediately begin sending huge volumes of unsolicited e-mail messages.

It's up to the ISP's to inform their infected customers and help them remove the worms and to setup stronger security to filter out the outgoing spam. The FTC would also recommend that ISPs block Internet access to those computers that are infected. Once their Internet connection is blocked, they will have to call their ISP to find out why their Internet is no longer operational. At this point, the ISP can better educate the consumer by pointing them to anti-virus solutions, personal firewalls, and helping them clean their computer of the infection.

Along with the issued statement to ISPs, the FTC has also announced a new plan called "Operation Spam Zombies". In partnership with 20 members of the London Action Plan and 16 additional government agencies from around the world, the Commission is sending letters to more than 3000 Internet service providers (ISPs) internationally, encouraging them to take the following zombie-prevention measures:


* block port 25 except for the outbound SMTP requirements of authenticated users of mail servers designed for client traffic. Explore implementing Authenticated SMTP on port 587 for clients who must operate outgoing mail servers.
* apply rate-limiting controls for email relays.
* identify computers that are sending atypical amounts of email, and take steps to determine if the computer is acting as a spam zombie. When necessary, quarantine the affected computer until the source of the problem is removed.
* give your customers plain-language advice on how to prevent their computers from being infected by worms, trojans, or other malware that turn PCs into spam zombies, and provide the appropriate tools and assistance.
* provide, or point your customers to, easy-to-use tools to remove zombie code if their computers have been infected, and provide the appropriate assistance.

In a later phase, the Operation plans to notify Internet providers worldwide that apparent spam zombies were identified on their systems, and urge them to implement measures to prevent that problem.

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[Duke]

That would certainly help with some of the spam but may hurt the internet as a whole because you'll have millions of computers affected on a daily or near daily basis. The other thing is that many computers are infected prior to virus' definitions even being written which means you can be offline for several days before your virus software can rid you of the virus. Not only that, but you need to be online to download the latest protection updates.

I think the whole idea is a bit unrealistic actually. Why not look into a WWW IP tracing system that traces the malicious software to the computer that wrote and released it? Send that tard to jail, cut off his fingers, or feed him to some hungry pandas and I'll bet that it makes "would be h4x0rz" think twice.