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So after a year of research and debate, what did the Aussies<\/a> come up with? A policy to disconnect people from the Internet if they get infected by a virus..<\/p>\n Rather naive isn’t it? Plus if your ISP cuts you off, how exactly are you supposed to resolve the problem without a connection to do research and download updates\/patches?<\/p>\n AUSTRALIANS would be forced to install anti-virus and firewall software on their computers before being allowed to connect to the internet under a new plan to fight cyber crime. And if their computer did get infected, internet service providers like Telstra and Optus could cut off their connection until the problem was resolved.<\/p>\n Those are two of the recommendations to come from a year-long inquiry into cyber crime by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications. Results of the inquiry, titled Hackers, Fraudsters and Botnets: Tackling the Problem of Cyber Crime, were released last night in a 260-page report. In her foreword, committee chair Belinda Neal said cyber crime had turned into a “sophisticated underground economy”.<\/p>\n “In the past decade, cyber crime has grown from the nuisance of the cyber smart hacker into an organised transnational crime committed for vast profit and often with devastating consequences for its victims,” Ms Neal said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Also if they push to make software developers legally responsible for flaws in their software I think the Aussie market is going to miss out on a lot of software that’s being sold elsewhere. Who’s going to want to sell software when a 0-day<\/a> exploit in your software opens you up to direct claims from the consumers using your software?<\/p>\n I applaud what they are doing, because consumer education and Government action is required for a country to increase its level of information security and reduce the cases of phishing and fraud.<\/p>\n During its inquiry the committee heard a growing number of Australians were being targeted by cyber criminals and that increasing internet speeds were likely to make the situation worse. It also heard the problem was costing Australian businesses as much as $649 million a year.<\/p>\n The committee looked at several different examples of cyber crime, including hacking<\/a>, phishing<\/a>, malware<\/a> and botnets<\/a>. Among its final 34 recommendations were:<\/p>\n Another of its recommendations was to create a new “e-security code of practice” that would define the responsibilities of internet service providers and their customers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n There’s no realistic way that the ISPs can monitor the level of security on consumers computers, Microsoft<\/a> is already pushing this hard with its ‘Action Center’ that warns users if they have disabled the firewall, don’t have anti-virus software installed or have not configured Windows Update.<\/p>\n Either way I don’t think consumers and software producers will be very happy if the government do actually implement this policy.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n