Posted: 07th Sep, 2005 By: MarkJ
Not even Microsoft's UK chief security advisor, Ed Gibson, is safe from rogue Internet diallers. Gibson found himself hit by BT bill for £450, which lead back to a piece of Trojan computer software that had been calling premium rate numbers without his knowledge:
Rogue diallers are malicious applications that hijack an Internet connection and redirect it to a premium rate number, often based abroad. They only affect dial-up connections, but some broadband users have been hit because they also have dial-up connections as a back-up.
Gibson was speaking at the London "eConfidence Spam and Scams" conference, at which he delivered a passionate attack on rogue diallers.
"I'm so perturbed about the whole area of rogue diallers
If we don't make a concerted effort to make the Internet more secure, it will be a very different place in the future," Gibson told the conference.The
ZDNet item notes that BT still refuses to pay back money lost to such fraud, while the premium rate regulator ICSTIS appeared unable to help.
This somewhat flys in the face of all we've been led to believe about a tougher stance against rogue diallers.