[LINK] Fwd: Optus and Telstra security

[Roger Clarke]

A risky business, in terms of false-positive blocking of traffic?

Not to mention the Global Threat that is McAfee?  (:-)}

The latest round:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/05/john-mcafee-indicted-court-fraud-cryptocurrency

The company inherited a degree of wildness from its founder:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McAfee

_______________

Stephen Loosley posted on Tue, 30 Mar 2021 00:54:57 +0000:

Blocking software to sit on home routers as Optus looks to prevent
malware and other threats.
Chris Duckett
zdNet
March 29, 2021
https://www.zdnet.com/article/optus-puts-mcafee-monitoring-on-its-home-router-for-wifi-secure/

Optus has announced its WiFi Secure product, which makes use of active
monitoring by McAfee software sitting on home routers in an attempt to
block the spread of malware and other malicious threats.

The telco said as the number of internet-connected devices in the home
continues to rise, there has been a growing need to "automatically
protect" those potential threat vectors.

"It's built into the Optus compatible modems and, helps to make sure all
internet traffic passing through the modem, to any device on that
network, is safe -- even those without a display screen," Optus said.

Optus customers on a family plan will get the blocking at no additional
cost, otherwise WiFi Secure will cost AU$5 a month.

The software on the router is connected to the McAfee Global Threat
Intelligence Cloud Network, and is claimed to not receive any personally
identifiable information. ZDNet has asked if the router fails gracefully
if the McAfee cloud is not reachable.

"Based on activity from millions of sensors worldwide and a dedicated
research team, this always-on, cloud-based threat intelligence service
collects and publishes online threats that are uploaded to your network
every minute to provide you and your family the latest protection," the
telco said.

Taking another route, Australian incumbent telco Telstra has been using
upstream DNS filtering, phishing text, and scam call blocks to fight
malicious threats.

Dubbed Cleaner Pipes, the DNS side of the initiative focuses on blocking
command and control communications of botnets, the downloading of remote
access trojans, as well as other forms of malware.

--
_______________________________________________
Link mailing list
Link at anu.edu.au
https://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link


-- 
Roger Clarke                            mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au
T: +61 2 6288 6916   http://www.xamax.com.au  http://www.rogerclarke.com

Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA

Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law            University of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University