While your suggestions would almost certainly have a positive effect, they don?t match business reality. An employer can easily set restrictions on executable content and the like, but an ISP will lose customers if they tried. An ISP customer expects fast, complete e-mail service. If a known virus is dropped, fine, but if a benign executable is held up for a couple of hours, I?m going to get pissed. Mail clients are shaped in a similar fashion. Sure, it would improve security if content couldn?t be executed form a mail client, but that isn?t what users want. Also, the definition of ?executable content? is becoming increasingly fuzzy. Unless you stick with plain text e-mail (will never happen), there will be risks.

This was the point of the column. Corporations can take precautions against Klez and similar threats, but the commoner doesn?t and probably will never have the same level of protection.


[ reply ]

Link to this comment: http://www.securityfocus.com/comments/columns/87/13021#13021