If you’re wondering why Sanjaya Malakar has done surprisingly well in American Idol, here’s one possible answer: dialers. Dialers are pieces of software usually stealthily installed on a victim’s computer to automatically dial expensive premium telephone numbers. The victim only finds out when they receive their phone bill. In this case, the dialer, openly available… Read More »
A tip from a reader (thanks, James) indicates we’re back on the trail of the rogue dialers. (Rogue dialers are pieces of software usually downloaded without the user’s knowledge, which then disconnect existing Internet connections and dial fresh connections via high-cost usually international numbers. The user doesn’t know much about it until the monthly phone… Read More »
Seems that those rogue dialers are still out there: This from the Manchester Evening News: £8m net swindle UP TO 300 internet users a day are targeted by a swindle which cost British consumers about £8m in a year, says BT. The company has received more than 80,000 complaints from computer users whose machines are… Read More »
When is a scam a scam or an urban myth? Dinah Greek of Computeractive writes that Britain’s premium rate line watchdog is being inundated with calls from worried consumers about scams that turn out to be untrue. One email warns of a scam that says people have received a recorded message on their phone informing… Read More »
Turns out I was wrong about the socially engineered spam I wrote about a few days back. Prompted by some readers’ comments, I asked Sophos about it. This is what Carole Theriault has to say about it: This is mass-mailing worm. It is call Wallon-A. Essentially, it goes to a dodgy website and downloads a… Read More »