My dad called me few days ago... he told about little problem with his 56k modem, it just terminates the connection after 30min or so... told him not to worry, his got a free monthly deal with an internet operator (so he can use the modem as much he wants).

Few hours ago I talked to my sister - my parent got a 1200 euros (=1500$) bill from a phone company! It seems that the hang-ups are caused by a virus that called an operator at Africa! Holy... fucking... shit!

I think I'll collect a list of the best and inexpensive virus scanners and post them here... can anyone suggest one?

Vatsis ,

That is whats called a "dialer" and it's not a virus but rather a "plug-in" . What happens is when you visit certain sites a script pops up , or in some cases doesn't show it self at all , asking you if you want to install some sort of evil program (XXX Toolbar and SmartSearch are 2 common ones). These people are such money-hungry , inbred bastards that some of their pop-up scripts are rigged in a way that no matter what you click (yes or no) it still installs the plug-in . This isn't a problem at all on cable or DSL because there is no phone line connected to the computer . But on dial-up it is a billion dollar a year nuisance that the governments from many countries have been trying to put a stop to for years . The main thing with malware of this sort is not detection and removal , but prevention of it being installed in the first place . After all , once a dialer is installed , it automaticlly starts trying to dial out , so after its called 25 numbers in South Micronesia and racked up a 5000 dollar phone bill , removal isn't your only problem .

Here's what I recommend your parents do .


1- Run Ad Aware , Pest Patrol , Spybot etc. and get the dialer plug-in removed .

2- Refuse to pay the phone bill , explaining what the nature of the charges are and that they were unaware of any outgoing phone calls from their computer . Fight it tooth and nail if they have to . Many phone companies will comply with such demands . Go over the phone companies head if they have to .

3- Abandon Internet Explorer and start using Mozilla Firefox browser or another alternate browser (Opera , Avant , MyIE2 etc.) which are , as of now , not exploited by any plug-in programs or scripts of any kind and as a bonus have very few , if any , advertising pop-ups .


Let me know if you need any further info on this V , would be happy to assist you .



F~

Vatsis, according to new EU legislation national phone companies of the memberstates will have to credit your phonebill, if such a thing - as FT explained (plugins) - happens. In some cases (like in Holland) your provider has to cooperate as well when phone-co's wish to see surfingdetails i.o. to check if you're an innocent victim or if you clicked 'yes' for download. In most European countries most of the phone-co's give in, because lawsuit-costs will exceed the phone-bill, thus avoiding a lot of headache.
I.o. to prevent such things - like FT suggested - flush I.E. down the toilet! I.E. sucks!!! WindowWasher 5.2 and SpySweeper 2.0 good remedies (afterwards) as well.

That is whats called a "dialer" and it's not a virus but rather
a "plug-in" .

That is what I thought... not made by some hacker kids, but some creedy porn program owners. They and those spammers make people think we all webmasters working for porn industry are plain evil. Sad thing is that I know many webmasters using dialers and sending email spam...

2- Refuse to pay the phone bill , explaining what the nature of
the charges are and that they were unaware of any outgoing
phone calls from their computer .

I'm afraid we small people can't win... already thought some points out helping to fight our provider:

1) Phone companies send their bills only once in 2 months. That's redicilous... during those days a dialer/virus could have used the connection for hundreds of times.

2) Internet connections are sold saying 'surf as much you want' with a fixed monthly fee... how can you explain to elder users that there still is a fee for calls they don't even recall?

I think that if the provider won't listen to us I'll use those points to describe a situation where

- people will call their support many times a day asking their current balance
- contact support every time they are about to make a call to a foreign country... after they want to lock those coutries out again
- nobody will buy their 24h/free internet connections.

Let me know if you need any further info on this V , would be
happy to assist you .

Thank you... you already helped, I'll check their computer tomorrow and see how bad it is.

happens. In some cases (like in Holland) your provider has to
cooperate as well when phone-co's wish to see surfingdetails

Our phone company is also our operator... I've heard that father already called them and they were are not going to offer any refund, only referring to similar cases where customer has always lost...

And Internet Exlorer is now gone 4ever... heard that WindowsXP SP2 has some improvements on security, but cannot wait.

And Internet Exlorer is now gone 4ever... heard that WindowsXP SP2 has some improvements on security, but cannot wait.

Winblows™ Service Pack 2 is already out in BETA form . I have heard it is very buggy/unstable and advise caution in using it . I for one never download any of Microshaft®'s so called "fixes" including Service Packs . Truth is I just don't trust them and they add many things to those SP's , including the rumored "undetectable trojans" . You are better off getting patches and fixes from third party websites such as the incomparable Gibson Research site : http://www.grc.com/ . I also highly recommend a site run by Black Viper . His fixes and advice are priceless and the guy is a true computer wizard : http://www.blackviper.com/



F~

I think I'll collect a list of the best and inexpensive virus scanners and post them here... can anyone suggest one?

Vatsis,

for avoiding future problems with dialers I can tell you that a virus scanner definitely won't do it. Virus scanners aren't programmed to detect dialers (same as spyware)! You will need a special anti dialer software that can detect unintended dial-up connections and block it! (Seemes to be easier than detecting the dialer itself). I just know a very good german anti dialer and this certainly won't help you. Or think about DSL-connection and you won't have dialer problems anymore.

Take Ad-Aware and Pest Patrol to remove known dialers (as Fucktard already said).

Or think about DSL-connection

That must be the ultimate solution... a bit ironic that parents wanted to save $10 a month by not using adsl.

Take Ad-Aware

That's one great software - used it to remove spyware, never thought that dialers could be this bad.

I first thought that it was a virus, being too naive that dialers could do this - been using cable for seven years now. This will affect how I'll think about my fellow webmasters still using dialers... they will surely stop using them now (I'll force them).

Thanks again for your help! Now it's time for some action...

don't know if this will help.but zone alram has stopped sevaral diffrent dialers from getting out on my puter,56k hookup,don't know if they were trying to get out on oublocked ports or not,but it caught some of em

but zone alram has stopped sevaral diffrent dialers from

Thanks! I'll sure check them out... too bad my parents' comp is 200mhz PentiumI, it will get quite slow with an active virus scan & stuff.

There is a special trojan- and dialer-scanner called " a² " for free (online-registration during installation process required):

http://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/download/