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Comcast Warns Users About PC Infections
By Doug Caverly
Staff Writer
Article Date: 2009-10-09
People with ties to the ISP industry may want to ask themselves how helpful is too helpful. Comcast announced yesterday that it will reach out to customers with infected PCs, which has some people saying "aww, thanks" while leaving others a little more worried.
Here are the program details: Comcast announced in a statement that it "will begin to trial an in-browser notification 'Service Notice', which will alert customers whose computers appear to be infected with a bot (or virus) and request that they go to the Anti-Virus Center and follow a set of instructions to assist with removing the bot from their computer and thereby prevent it from spreading to other users."
It's important to note that the service will be provided for free to Comcast High-Speed Internet customers. Also, Comcast doesn't intend to dig through the files on anyone's PC. It'll look for botnet-like activity by analyzing traffic spikes and related things, instead.
The trick may be in where Comcast draws its line - will people who download lots of videos receive bot notices, for example? There's also a concern about the notification system. Comcast has said that it will use pop-ups, which many users are trained to ignore and malware authors might learn to imitate.
We'll see what happens, then, and probably see rather soon, given that the Service Notice trial started yesterday.
About the Author:
Doug is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest eBusiness news.
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