Australia: ISPs Should Detect Virus Infected Computers (DPI Becomes a Must for ISPs)

 

ABC News reports that "A federal parliamentary committee has called for new measures to deal with an explosion of fraud and scams on the internet. The committee has recommended internet providers be obliged to tell people if their computers are infected with a virus."

See "Calls for national office to tackle cyber crime" - here

Committee chairwoman Belinda Neal says "internet service providers (ISPs) must be made to tell people if their computers have been infected by harmful programs"

The inquisitr ("Australia Takes Further Step Towards Police State With Cyber Crime Proposals" - here) adds - "The headline proposal, if adopted by the Government, would force Australian internet users to install and keep up-to-date virus scanners on computers as a condition for internet access via the contractual obligations with their ISP. Users would also be forced to “take reasonable steps to remediate their computer(s) when notified of suspected malware compromise.”

In the event that the customer does not meet these contractual obligations, ISP’s must provide “a clear policy on graduated access restrictions and, if necessary, disconnection until the infected machine is remediated.”

So ISPs will need to detect infected subscribers. This requires DPI technology - and much more extensive than the DPI used to identify applications, as it has to inspect every packet (rather than every flow).