Comments on: AOL touts its virus-blocking stats

The dial-up giant says it's stopped 1 billion virus-infected e-mails since launching its screening service in April 2003.

IT'S ABOUT TIME

IT'S ABOUT TIME CONTENT PROVIDERS AND ISP'S TOOK SOME RESPONSIBILITY FOR SECURITY ON THE INTERNET, BY PRESCANNING EMAIL FOR VIRUSES.

IT'S ABOUT TIME

IT'S ABOUT TIME CONTENT PROVIDERS AND ISP'S TOOK SOME RESPONSIBILITY FOR SECURITY ON THE INTERNET, BY PRESCANNING EMAIL FOR VIRUSES.

Take with grain of salt

This is certainly a step forward for ISPs. However, it is important to point out that AOL most likely blocked 1 billion known viruses, since they use signature-based technology for their anti-virus scanning. This technology is inherent reactive. AOL needs to integrate behavior-based scanning technology so that they can also protect their subscribers from new, unknown attacks immediately, before a signature-file update is made available to them by their AV partner. Complimenting their exisiting anti-virus defense with behavior-based content security is the only way to provide their subscribers a more robust defense against known and unknown attacks.