For many, reminiscent of the daily walk to the mailbox with mixed feelings:
The singer, your favorite monthly magazine - or a friend
handwritten letter (already) a surprise in the e-mail age can
waiting for the fear of how many bills the postman meets
left side.
Well come to imagine on your phone bill, thicker and heavier
than normal. When you open it, instead of "statement
stuffers "from the marketing department of the telephone company, the
Bill isDozens of pages long ending in a month in total
nearly 5,400 U.S. dollars.
A brief look at the details shows hundreds of calls to the
Same 1-900 number. "A mistake," you insist. Finally, you are
the only person in the house and you have never as a 900-point
before. Actually, this is not an error. In this true story
Homeowner had fallen victim of one of the oldest computer scams
example: the "Auto-Dialer" virus.
As these computer security isNightmare start
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What is an "auto-dialer"? Some time ago, the phone company
came with a feature that allows merchants a broader approach to
Number of customers to enable consumers to make payments on your
Phone bill. If you do not have a credit card that you just chose a
900 number, connected by voice or modem (for Internet sites).
Every minute that you use the service, you were charged oneFee
from $ 1 to $ 5 or more per minute. At the end of the month, the charge
appeared on the phone bill. Many services were legit: Consumers
called weather, horoscope and gambling with this
Feature. But many merchants sold expensive phone or online adult
Content.
As a car came Dialer Get Installed
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But how did $ 5400 of charges at the end of man on the phone bill?
Although many of these services, the user must physically
Select the phone number or connect to the online site by instructing the
Modem to dial the number, this can happen without the user
Knowledge. In the above case, the person has been infected computer
with an auto-dialer virus. Somewhere in his Web travels, he
to a site that appeared a rather confusing message attached
instructed him to "hit" OK "to the away message. What
this persondid not know he had permission to download, install,
and you have an active adult content auto-dialer.
Behind the scenes, the auto-dialer installed itself, checked for
the presence of a modem and dial tone, and then went on to vote
Overseas number of 900 over and over again. Even if the person
surfed with always-on broadband Internet connection, the
Modem remained so he could send and receive faxes. One problem:
When he is not with the modem, it remainedproperly with the
Jack. Why he should be unplugged? It's not like it
could not hurt, right? Wrong.
How to Protect Yourself
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Unfortunately, there is no single solution to avoid these types of
malicious acts. A short list of protective measures would
Feedback:
1) If you no longer need a modem in your computer, remove it. Or
at least unplug the phone line from theModem;
2) Install anti-virus software such as Trend Micro or Symantec
Norton Anti-Virus. Many are designed to prevent this type of
malicious software or malware. "More importantly, make sure
Your subscription for new virus patterns current and
configured to automatically download and install;
3) Install and regularly run Adware protection solutions such as
Lavasoft Ad-Aware or Spybot Search & Destroy;
4) And not havingall circumstances blindly hit "OK" to
Pop-ups or similar inconveniences without first sure what you
Consent to be.
This story is not fiction, in fact, there are often
Businesses and consumers, children and adults. But even the least
savvy of us can thwart such an attack. A quarter of teenagers
are recently avoided potentially thousands of charges when an
Auto-dialer was downloaded and installed. How? She had unplugged
the modem.
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