"Most customers who send spam are doing so unknowingly," Jeanne Russo, a Comcast spokeswoman, said in an email statement. "Once identified, the accounts are quarantined and contacted to resolve the issue. After the problem has been resolved, the customer is restored to full network access."
Cox Communications, which also runs a cable ISP, scans for potentially compromised accounts and then suspends or quarantines accounts until the owner patches the security hole. The company forces people to send email through internal mail servers rather than to set up their own servers. Spammers often use such servers to piggyback on a network's bandwidth, thereby sending more emails at a faster rate.
But Cox also tries to mix in publicity campaigns aimed at pushing users to update their PC operating systems and patch weak points.
"ISPs need to encourage users to enable automatic patch updates for their Windows systems, evangelise weekly visits to www.windowsupdate.com and www.officeupdate.com, and offer crosslinking or bundles with the latest antivirus and firewall software vendors," Jeff Hartley, a manager of security and abuse for Cox, said in an email statement.
Local phone giants, which are the largest suppliers of digital subscriber line (DSL) access, also face similar problems. Verizon Communications, the largest local phone company in the United States, takes a more user-centric approach. It suspends subscriber accounts only in "egregious" instances of spam abuse but mainly tries to prod its users into taking action.
"We can't sit there and say: 'You're spamming -- we're going to knock you off the wire,'" said Scott Lebredo, a senior technical manager at Verizon Online. "It's your access. You're responsible for it, but you must be educated about how to combat it."
Talkback
i object very strongly to the following statement within this report:-
"Nowadays, a person sending spam is Granny, and she has no idea she's doing it," said Joe Stewart, a senior security researcher at Lurhq, a corporate security company. "
while i agree that there are some elderly people,and not all female either, that havent a clue what they are doing, i am increasingly finding that the elderly want to and do learn as much as they can about what they can do with their pc's and how to protect them.i find the above remark both sexist and ageist.we are not the senile lot some of you younger people think nor are we women as stupid as that excerpt implies.i have however come across a lot of youngsters who think they know it all,who seem to think that having virus protection and firewalls is all they need to do.being vigilent with emails/and putting unknowns onto their messenger lists isnt neccessary as far as they are concerned,the attitude is,with the antivirus/firewall protection they have got there isn't a thing they can do otherwise to stop a virus/worm if it gets through.and, at the risk of being called sexist here myself,most of those sort are young men.so please,less of the sexist/ageist talk?anyone of any age/sex can be lax in these things and frequently are.oh btw....i am a 61yr old "granny" who constantly tries to keep herself and her friends upto date with av information/has recently completed 2 websites on yorkshire and her family tree/learnt about using graphics/making web pages/html etc in the last 5 months.and i am not on my own as there is a group of us from 45-80 doing the same things.
The ISPs need to assume full responsibility for network security, and not slough it off on their customers. They have the resources, and are ideally positioned to detect viruses, spammers, etc, and nip the problem in the bud.
So let's not hear any more about ISPs telling customers about safe practices. They should be providing the necessary software and services.
I think it is up to users at the end of the day - but many are just un aware and therefore ISP's should take the leading role...
I personally think that the answer to the issue is that security needs to become more of a partnership between users & ISPs. We've all seen the rise of consumerism throughout the 90s, and of ideas such as 'Rights with Responsibilities.' Net security, to my mind, is like security for our homes, cars, or PCs, come to that. The police can help us, but ultimately, we do have an input ourselves. No-one [I hope! :)] would expect to learn potholing or snorkelling skills, without learning anything about safety, and I think that there is a parallel, especially as a major reason for using the net is surely that of increasing one's 'bank' of information. Hopefully, the 21st Century will see great reductions in the impact of malware, as we each (myself included) assist the ISPs in our own little way.