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Webwatch
November 2004
Expensive surfing.
A friend of mine has just received a phone bill for £472 and
he is not very happy. He and his wife make only a normal use of their
phone so both were surprised when one premium rate number appeared many
times on their bill.
It did not take long to work out what had happened, their computer had been infected with code that dialled the premium rate number when they thought they were simply using the internet. To make matters worse, when the premium rate phone number was removed from the machine and it was checked the next day as still being the old correct number, the fraudulent code returned a little later. Their web browser, Microsoft's Internet Explorer, had been hijacked.
Quite innocently, someone using the machine had looked at a webpage and clicked a button. As a result and without showing what was happening, fraudulent code was installed on their machine that dialled a new number instead of the old one. As most people do not look at the number being dialled when connecting to the internet, they continued to use it for some weeks before the big bill arrived. Stories in the news have told of people getting even larger bills, some over £1000. A symptom of this fraud is the appearance of pop-up windows, often advertising sex sites, however, pop-ups can appear at any time so this is not proof your machine is infected.
It can happen to anyone that uses a modem. As broadband connections become more common, this particular attack will diminish in its effect but it can still happen as broadband allows the simultaneous use of the phone and broadband line. If you have left the modem line connected after broadband has been installed, you are still vulnerable, so simply unplug it.
All this begs the question, what can I do about it?
Prevention.
Having anti-virus software will not necessarily protect you from
these malicious attacks. One way to protect your computer is to stop using
Microsoft's Internet Explorer which is so vulnerable to attack. There
are much better web browsers around free of charge that are not easy to
attack. Have a look at www.spywareinfo.com/articles/hijacked/prevent.php
for help and specific advice.
Immediate measures if you suspect this fraud has hit your computer.
1. Unplug the lead from the computer to the phone socket.
2. If you must use the machine on the internet, look to see if the username,
password and phone number are your usual ones as the computer dials the
number. If not, click on the cancel button immediately.
3. Get onto your phone company and have premium rate numbers blocked.
4. As the fraudsters are using quite clever software, it is not easy to
get rid of but it is possible. Have a look at www.spywareinfo.com/articles/hijacked
for specific help.
All this is very sad as naturally the phone companies know who these people are; they pay them. When my friend pays his huge phone bill to ntl, they will take the money and pay the fraudsters. Phone companies are it seems doing nothing to prevent this fraud as they make a lot of money, their attitude seems to be "you dialled the number so you pay".
Happy surfing, but be careful.
Howard