Okay. I'm well and truly fed up. Before our mail gateway's virus scanner had updated its signatures (which it currently does twice a day), no less than four emails had come through with suspicious attachments. Luckily we're all smart enough to avoid opening such attachments, but it's obvious there's plenty who aren't.

The attachments in question came from the new MyDoom.F variant, which is intended to target the RIAA and Microsoft with yet another Distributed Denial of Services (not to mention deleting graphic files, text documents, spreadsheets, and databases on infected machines). In this day and age, people are still mad enough to not update their machines using Windows Update - and worse yet are those who are running no virus protection whatsoever.

The IIA, of which MTekk IT Services is a member, recently announced a new antivirus initiative which provides free antivirus trials to users. It's obvious the message hasn't reached everyone, or been heard anywhere near well enough.

There are still many people who will argue that they can't afford virus protection. Okay, but can you afford to lose your data? Or pay for the extra bandwidth used by that virus trying to spread itself?

Bottom line: there will always be (in particular) home users who will fail to install or update their virus protection. So there will always be a way for these viruses to be spread How can this be solved?

I believe that Australian Internet Service Providers should enforce virus protection for all users connecting to their networks. Swallow your pride, enter into licensing agreements with major antivirus vendors, and protect your users for free. Don't make it optional, don't make it a "user-pays" scheme.

Yes, ISPs will lose out on all that extra bandwidth used unwittingly by infected users (quite a nice little scam while you can get away with it), and yes, they'll lose out on what could otherwise be an extra stream of revenue selling it as an additional service, BUT - they will win out in the end, both through becoming leaders in the world-wide community for a tough stance on viruses, and through increased customer satisfaction.

Perhaps this should be made an industry standard, with a "Virus Safe" badge available to ISPs who comply. You'd probably find industry heavyweights like Microsoft would be only too willing to kick in on a scheme such as this, which would help them to overcome what is really the worst public relations problem facing them - it's too easy to catch viruses using the Windows operating system.

As to businesses : get serious. If you're running a business of any sort that has internet connectivity, you need virus protection, whether you're big or small. Keeping your PCs up to date with security patches and virus updates can be more or less fully automated, and it's well worth the effort.

In addition, those businesses who retain contractors should seriously consider refusing to permit contractors to connect to their network without providing proof of adequate virus protection. Guess where most of the virus outbreaks I've seen of late have come from? Contractors with inadequate - or non-existent - virus protection. It's unprofessional, and you should seriously question whether you want such a contractor working for you!

Bottom line: viruses cost money. Downtime and loss of productivity cost far more than adequate virus protection!

I think a more co-ordinated approach to antivirus across the internet industry would make a major dent in the problem, and a serious effort by business - whether small, medium, or enterprise - to eradicate viruses from their organisation will in turn serve to make virus outbreaks far less prevalent.

I really do think we should stop putting the onus on home users - for every 1 home user who is responsible enough to ensure adequate virus protection, there's bound to be at least 2 more who refuse point-blank to either purchase an antivirus product, or keep it updated. So take it a step higher, and make it an industry standard to catch all virus traffic at the ISP level and (for businesses) at the mail gateway. That's the way to win the war. You'll never completely eradicate virus outbreaks. But to reduce it down to a level where it barely registers a blip: that's the ticket. And watch how quickly the rest of the world starts to follow.