An Australian government report into cybercrime has recommended that Internet service providers force customers to use antivirus and firewall software or risk being disconnected.

Belinda Neal, committee chair, said in her introduction to the 262-page report, titled "Hackers, Fraudsters and Botnets: Tackling the Problem of Cyber Crime," that due to the exponential growth of malware and other forms of cybercrime in recent years, "the expectation that end users should or can bear the sole responsibility for their own personal online security is no longer a tenable proposition."

"We need to apply the same energy and commitment given to national security and the protection of critical infrastructure to the cybercrime threats that impact on society more generally," she said.

Full story: c|net