"Today’s media is full of statistics and stories detailing how the
Internet has become an increasingly dangerous place for all
concerned. Figures of tens of millions and hundreds of millions of
bot-infected computers are regularly discussed, along with
approximations that between one-quarter and one-third of all home
computer systems are already infected with some form of malware.
With a conservative estimate of 1.4 billion computers browsing the
Internet on a daily basis (mid-2008 figures), that could equate to
upwards of 420 million computers that can’t be trusted – and the
numbers could be higher as criminals increasingly target Web browser
technologies with malicious Web content – infecting hundreds of
millions more along the way.
Despite these kinds of warnings and their backing statistics,
online businesses have yet to fully grasp the significance of the
threat. Most of the advice about dealing with the problem has
focused on attempting to correct the client-side infection and yet,
despite the education campaigns and ubiquity of desktop anti-virus
solutions, the number of infected computers has continued to rise.
The problem facing online businesses going forward is, if upwards of
one-third of their customers are likely to be using computers
infected with malware to conduct business transactions with them,
how should they continue to do business with an infected customer
base?
This paper discusses many of the best practices businesses can
adopt for their Web application design and back-office support
processes in order to minimize this growing threat, along with
helping to reduce several of the risks posed with continuing to do
business customers likely to be operating infected computers."
Article Link: http://www.technicalinfo.net/papers/MalwareInfectedCustomers.html
