Spam - Call for greater involvement of ISPs in the suppression of spam

[ispreview] The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has released new research into the role that broadband Internet Service Providers (ISP) around the world can play in helping to mitigate the impact of Botnet's (i.e. Trojan / Malware infected computers), which SPAMMERS abuse to spew out approximately 83.4% of all junk email (Symantec’s MessageLabs 2009 data).

Over the period 2005-2009, between 60% to 74% of all infected computers (i.e. SPAM sending IP addresses worldwide) were located within networks of around 200 ISPs in the wider OECD area. However just 50 ISPs account for half of all infected machines and the vast majority of these are legitimate providers.

Thankfully many ISPs claim that their organisations already have practices in place to tackle spam/botnets, where they contact and in some cases quarantine customers whose machines are infected with malware. Virgin Media UK has done this before, as have a few others. However the OECD warned that this practice is not as widely adopted as it could be, doesn't catch enough infected computers and no data is available to show its true effectiveness.

OECD Study Nudges World Broadband ISPs to Crackdown on Botnets and SPAM