When it comes to protecting businesses from the dangers of web-borne malware, the responsibility historically has rested on the company itself.

But a new vendor aptly called Robot Genius, set to launch on Monday, has designed a behavioral-based malware detection and remediation technology and, ahem, is targeting internet service providers and search engines as its main customer base.

Genius!

Co-founder Stephen Hsu, who moonlights as a physics professor at the University of Oregon - met me in New York yesterday to talk about his new venture. He said about five percent of all URLs contain malware. The Robot Genius solution, which has access to the major search engine’s crawl data, creates blacklists using patented, machine-powered technology.

Hsu told me he also hopes to sign on some firewall providers as customers. Meanwhile, individual companies can also purchase the plug-in to block users from downloading known malicious sites.

Maybe a solution like this - which includes web-crawler data that contains a huge blacklist of infected URLs - will help answer some of the industry calls for increased ISP accountability.

The fight against cybercrime takes a concerted effort. While the web access and search providers have made some strides to include security in their features, they are a long way from doing all they can. Hopefully a product like this is the shot in the arm they need.