Comcast Pop-Up Alerts: A Good Idea or Not?

[Bugbatter]

Comcast Tries Pop-Up Alerts to Warn of Infections
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/10/09/business/AP-US-TEC-Comcast-Virus.html?_r=1

Phil Lin, marketing director at network security firm FireEye Inc., said hackers could mimic Comcast's pop-up banner or the confirmation ads. And unsuspecting customers wouldn't know they should expect to see a confirmation from Comcast in the first place.

(I agree with Phil Lin's comment and wonder about the use of hoax popups and rogue sites.)

[Mister2]

I agree, too.
If people get used to acting on popups then the forums will become a whole lot busier.

[faith_michele]

I think that if they implement it properly, it will be good.  Keeping that in mind, they should give the people affected options - not just forcing them to use the chosen McAfee Security Suite (even though it is free to Comcast customers).

http://security.comcast.net/get-protected/index.aspx

They have been doing this by phone for the last year.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/10/comcast_begins_alerting_bot-in.html?wprss=securityfix

[faith_michele]

Excerpt....

by Gar Warner, 11 October 2009

-Comcast raises the bar for ISP Behavior

There is one new news item I wanted to call attention to this weekend. According to Brian Krebs "Security Fix" column in the Washington Post Comcast, the largest residential Internet Service Provider, is beginning a new program to alert home PC users who might be infected with malicious bot software.

Good job, Comcast! If we can get more Internet Service Providers monitoring for malicious software, we could dramatically reduce the number of infected computers. We look forward to hearing how this initiative impacts your customers!

http://garwarner.blogspot.com/2009/10/weekend-of-old-news.html