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Zombie Report By ISP
twitter writes "Information Week has a summary of a report by Prolexic detailing Zombie activity by ISP, country and population statistics. AOL, the largest provider, had the most zombies but lower rates than others. Fourth largest Earthlink was not in the top 20. The information is gathered from hundreds of customer sites." From the article: "Weinstein went on to say that Prolexic's numbers were actually good news for AOL. 'It's a demonstration that the tools we provide are keeping members safe. Our very aggressive actions -- we provide anti-virus, anti-spyware, and firewall services to our users -- make them measurably safer than those on other ISPs.'"
AOL spins the report as good news because they claim a low rate of 0.54% zombie machines per million subscribers...yeah but...
They are basing that on 21.7 million total subscribers. I wonder what their rate would be if they only counted broadband subscribers?
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
AOL, the largest provider, had the most zombies
Sometimes jokes just write themselves...
There is nothing more practical than a good abstract theory.
we provide anti-virus, anti-spyware, and firewall services to our users
BUT WAIT! There's more!
If you act now, we'll throw in ANOTHER anti-virus service at no extra charge! All this for only 89.95!
Okay, I'm not supposed to do this, but I'll personally add another EXTRA anti-spyware monitoring system AND take off 50 bucks from the retail price!
All this and more for only 3 easy payments of 39.95!
1. Participation in Distributed Denial-of-Service attacks
2. EATING BRAINS
But you will block 21 million legitimate users too. If that is acceptable, I don't really want to have anything to do with your company.
No amount of firewalls, switching to Mac or Linux, or anything else will stop people from having their computers taken over at the end of the day. Stupid users will always find a way to get infected dispite the best protection available.
Operating a computer should be like operating heavy machinary. You need to pass a test that says you're qualified to do it. Don't want to take the time to learn how to properly use a computer and avoid being just another zombie PC sending me emails about lowering my car payments or free nude pics of celebrities? Then don't use a computer at all.
If you think this is a little irrational, just remember that the financial damages caused by computer viruses are probably in the billions of dollars every year. Imagine how much trouble could be prevented.
The other thing about AOL's dialup service is that they buy modems from local ISP's in areas where they don't operate central hubs. I used to work for one such ISP that contracted to AOL. We were very proactive about protecting customers, etc.
So a lot of the AOL crowd having good numbers may very well be local ISP's that are taking good care of their own customers, and just happen to contract out to AOL on the side
-everphilski-
You know those underlined bits in the summary at the top of this page? They're called hyperlinks, and you can click on them... try clicking on the second one.
If eBay, playboy.com and espn.com blocked AOL users until AOL got rid of their zombies AOL would make absolute certain that the problem would be solved within 48 hours.
I'd be willing to bet that the majority of the 1st world zombies originate on 'White Label' broadband. The aforementioned Comcast, Cox, SWB DSL... things like that. AOL has the most of any ISP, but I bet the conglomerate of the top 5 cable and dsl bandwidth providers easily dwarfs them.
They're the 'cheap' local providers, not the 'evil' big boys like AOL, so they're what your grandmother will subscribe to when your idiot nephew convinces her she needs an 'Always On' connection to listen to NPR or check her email every five minutes.
Yeah, this *looks* like it's just the industry's problem, but it's not. It's mine and yours. Every time you or I answer 'Well, I need a computer and a cable modem to check my email, right?' with just a 'yeah sure', we're adding to it.
Go buy Grandma that $39.99 firewall from Best Buy, configure it for her, and tell her that she doesn't need to worry about it. It's like the extra deadbolt on her front door. It helps keeps the bad-guys out.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Here you go
The Prolexic Zombie Report
Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
Except that it wasn't just an appliance, was it? It was a bug ridden piece of manure that was delivered with known defects, to people who by and large don't have the wherewithal to work around those defects.
This is Microsoft's fault, plainly. Not the poor bastards who were taken in.
Actually, AOL's "ISP" is AOL Transit Data Network (ATDN), a related company. They're a "tier 1" provider, and they communicate directly with other tier 1 providers: AT&T, MCI, Level(3), Verio, GBLX, C&W, Verizon, etc. They're the guys who own the big continent- and ocean-spanning fiber optic networks.
"ISP" usually refers to something more customer-facing than the tier 1 providers.