A clean public network is essential for ISPs and hosting companies to protect their services from threats and maintain a good reputation.
This involves taking proactive steps to monitor and address any abuse coming from public network space and taking preventive measures to avoid abuse in the first place.
Additionally, it is essential to have an effective system for identifying issues managing your network’s abuse role address and resolving customer issues to ensure that customer concerns and complaints are addressed quickly to minimize any potential reputation damage.
What Are the Benefits of Having a Clean Public Network for an ISP or Hosting Provider?
A clean public network can benefit an ISP or hosting provider in several ways:
- Protecting their own enterprise and customer-facing services
- A positive reputation attracts customers and ensures unrestricted traffic
- Mitigating reputation damage and legal risk by protecting Safe Harbor
- Protect subscribers
Protecting their own enterprise and customer-facing services
Protecting their own enterprise and public network services is crucial for preventing cyber-attacks and malware infections from within.
By monitoring and addressing abuse from their hosted public network space, ISPs, and hosting providers can ensure their services remain secure and their customers’ data is protected.
A positive reputation attracts customers and ensures unrestricted traffic
Having a clean public network can help build a positive reputation for an ISP or hosting provider.
A good reputation is critical for attracting new customers and retaining existing ones. To achieve this, preventive measures should be taken to reduce the risk of abuse and address abuse in near real-time when it happens.
An effective Abuse Desk, like AbuseHQ, will help the network provider notify subscribers of issues in near-real time and is effective in helping subscribers address their issues.
By responding quickly and effectively ISPs and hosting providers can minimize potential reputation damage. Doing so ensures they can continue providing quality customer service, ensuring unrestricted traffic flows.
Mitigating reputation damage and legal risk by protecting Safe Harbor
Reputation damage and loss of Safe Harbor Protection can be critical issues for ISPs and hosting providers.
A clean public network can help maintain its reputation in case of abuse or customer complaints. By responding quickly and effectively to any abuse discovered and promptly addressing customer concerns and complaints, ISPs and hosting providers minimize potential reputation damage and allow them to demonstrate in Safe Harbor challenges that they have well-managed processes.
Moreover, losing Safe Harbor Protection can be a serious consequence of not having a clean public network. Safe Harbor Protection is a legal principle that protects ISPs and hosting providers from liability for the actions of their users.
However, this protection can be lost if the ISP or hosting provider is found to know of any illegal activity or fails to take reasonable steps to prevent it. Maintaining a clean public network is critical to ensuring Safe Harbor Protection.
Protect subscriber
Quality and excellent customer service should also be provided to build a positive reputation with your subscribers.
Notifying your subscribers when a vulnerability or their machine (gone rogue as a bot) hits a local honeypot or user-facing interface ensures you are proactive in building trust and safety with your customers rather than only wacking them for abuse 9 months later when the bot is no longer just knocking on local machines and are now attacking other networks outside the provider’s network.
ISPs and hosting companies can maintain a clean reputation, protect their services from threats, and enhance customer service with little effort.
See our articles Everything You Need to Know About Botnet Attacks and About Honeypots and Spamtraps
In summary
ISPs and hosting companies that proactively protect their public network space and maintain a good reputation have very few challenges to their network flow and Safe Harbor.
Monitoring and addressing abuse, taking preventive steps to reduce abuse risk, having an effective system for managing and resolving customer issues, and providing quality trust and safety services and excellent customer service help build a positive reputation and a well-fortified network for your business and your customers.
