Bug Watch: ISPs hold key to e-security

Every key date sees a new spate of warnings - Christmas, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day. But if Melissa and the Love Bug put email content threats into national headlines, the recent trojan attack on service provider AOL skims the surface of a deeper problem.

AOL users were warned this week of the threat, yet there is evidence that the trojan - APStrojan.qa, to give it its proper name - has been lurking for over a year. Virus software firm McAfee just this week rated it the second most active virus based on a scan of desktop computers.

As organisations looking for managed email services, we are gradually waking up to the fact that ISPs can help protect customers from content security threats such as viruses, spam and trojans, by detecting and removing them before they become a problem. As customers of ISPs, we are starting to expect this "duty of care", and are even willing to pay for this extra service.

So how can ISPs prevent both themselves and their customers from passing on viruses, trojans and all the other host of security threats? With one of the many cost-effective e-security software solutions that are available to ISPs, and which can help protect them and their customers from a whole range of threats over and above viruses and trojans.

From a business perspective, virus checkers and firewalls are a sound base on which to build computer security; but they can't tackle the threats deeply embedded or disguised in email. Therefore ISPs need to turn to a more comprehensive e-security solution - one that can offer even more value-add to their customers by enabling their business and helping to establish and enforce email and internet policies to manage this wider spectrum of security threats.

E-security can help tackle spam and large attachments clogging bandwidth and reducing productivity, unsuitable communications resulting in lawsuits and damaged company image, and loss of confidential information costing business both financially and operationally.

The Western European market is currently served by 3,000 ISPs but is expected to consolidate dramatically over the next three years. Only the ISPs who offer a range of value added services, in particular e-security services, will successfully win out in the market consolidation.

With more and more organisations looking to their ISPs for managed email and other outsourced solutions, e-security could provide an extremely valuable revenue stream. What a differentiator for an ISP - experienced professionals handling protection from content security threats such as AOL's trojan, perhaps as a subscription based add-on, freeing organisations from the cost of implementing and updating the hardware and software necessary to stop myriad content security threats.

Even after the publicity the Love Bug virus received, a report published by IDC this month predicts that 37 per cent of users would still open an email entitled 'I LOVE YOU' on 14 February if it came from a known source. ISPs who head such threats off at the pass will earn the gratitude of every one of their existing customers, and open the door to attracting many more new customers.

Next edition: 16 February