Spam Blacklist Targets Hijacked Telewest Customers

davidmcg writes "BBC.co.uk reports that UK cable firm Telewest has had almost one million email address blacklisted by an anti-spam firm. The Spam Prevention Early Warning System blacklisted the email addresses because a large number of the machines using them have been hijacked by spammers. Telewest have stated that they knew about the problem and have been working with customers to regain control of their machines."

Comments

Telewest faced usenet death penalty 3yrs ago

[throwaway18]

About three years ago a usenet death penalty was issued against Telewest. Before it came into force they stopped all messages spreading out from their main newsserver and began scanning their customers for open newsservers and open proxys.

Self help solution

[wallior]

When my cable company had any issues with spam from any of their customers, they simply cut off their internet until the customer had their computer fixed. Seems easier than what this cable company is going through. User can either pay to have their computer cleaned and secured, or do it themselves. They then advise the Cable company to put them back on. Lot better for every other customer who is responsible enough to maintain their PCs.

Irresponsible to let infected machines stay online

[D4C5CE]

"have been working with customers to regain control of their machines."

Not knowing the particular details of what went on at that provider, but hardly anyone can claim to "have been working with customers" without even (probing and) shutting down their Internet connections in the first place as soon as they knew that

• these customers' PCs were infected
• they were (at least about to be) hijacked
• the users were unaware or incapable of fixing the problem, i.e. it was demonstrably out of control for the systems' owners.

With 3+ GHz CPUs, 512-1024 MB RAM, 300+ gigs of HDD and on a 3+ Mbit/s broadband connection, every ISP knows that off-the-shelf PCs can still appear to work under an amazing (crap)load today, and they have more potential to wreak havoc than entire major companies or universites a decade ago ... I have seen (completely unsuspecting) home users' machines infected with no less than 200 different (!) "manifestations" of malware on them at once, several times this year already - from the kind of guys who don't even grasp the concept of a rescue disk, to whom a computer can only be "broken", and who just go and buy a new machine, every year or so, when their previous one comes down to a crawl. Even worse, the "old" machine (full wormload included) is usually passed on (and networked again) to primary-school kids or elderly relatives who are even more clueless.

None of them had ever received that call from their providers (which could even be automated to some extent):

"This is Incredible Internet Services Inc. - We regret to notify you that your Internet connection had to be temporarily shut down for violation of our Acceptable Use Policy: (specified ...) You may have overlooked an infection of your PC or an access to your home network accidently left open. To get you back online as soon as possible, a complimentary 30-day trial copy of Soandso Security Software is already in the mail to you. Once you have finished disinfecting and securing your systems, or if you need any additional help, please call customer support at ..."

Re:Irresponsible to let infected machines stay onl

[dlZ]

I get quite a few machines from Road Runner customers that have received a notice and had their service turned off until the machine was fixed. One customer told them she fixed it (she didn't, was using all Macs) and had her service turned back on, just to be almost immediatly turned off until she had proof from some sort of tech support it was fixed (it wasn't her machines... It was her open wireless router and her clueless neighbor who just connected to whatever popped up first.) I had to fax over a letter on my companies letterhead to have her service turned back on once her router was configured properly.

Have never seen one from a Verizon customer locally, though (RR and Verizon are pretty much the only two providers you see used around here.)