Hotmail defended from virus slur

Microsoft last week hit back at allegations that it is not doing enough to prevent its Hotmail service becoming a carrier of potentially devastating macro virus infections.

Six months after ISP Star Internet first told Microsoft that Hotmail's anti-virus scanner leaks e-mails, it claims it is still Star's biggest source of e-mail viruses sent to its business customers. Between 1 September and 27 October, the ISP's scanners trapped 168 viruses in e-mails sent by Hotmail users.

Natalie Taylor of Microsoft said that Hotmail is the only web-based e-mail service that offers anti-virus protection for incoming attachments.

She said Star's criticism took no account of the fact that Hotmail is the world's most popular internet e-mail product, with over 45 million users.

"We are committed to helping protect users from viruses, and have implemented McAfee's virus scanning software solution. We continually keep this updated, and as soon as new signature files are released we update our software to continually protect users. We do not currently virus-scan outgoing email or attachments, and are evaluating whether this is something we'll implement in the future," Taylor said.

Mark Sunner, technical director of Star Internet, admitted that implementing a virus scanner on such a large system might be technically difficult to scale, and said it could adversely impact the service's latency.

Despite this, Sunner said Microsoft had a duty to scan for viruses, not least because spreading viruses could expose businesses who use web-based e-mail services to legal liability.

"People wouldn't expect to scan their mail at home for Semtex, that's something the Post Office does. Our stance is that a service provider has a similar obligation to scan e-mail for viruses," said Sunner