Rogue diallers still a threat

Users with dial-up modems most at risk

Rogue diallers are still a major threat to home PC users, according to figures collected by security software vendor Kasperksy Lab for December.

The scams made up one third of the top 20 online threats in the run up to the new year. The top two alone - Trojan.Win32.Dialer.cj and Trojan.Win32.Dialer.hz – accounted for 24 per cent of online threats in December.

The research indicates that even among a PC-literate audience, around 10 per cent still use dial-up connections to access the internet at home. This makes them vulnerable to rogue diallers – something that will continue into 2007. But it’s not just dial-up users who are affected: broadband users are also at risk if they still have a dial-up modem on their PC.

'We have heard of a number of instances where people believed they would be safe from rogue diallers because they have broadband access, but they have still been ripped off,' says David Emm, senior technology consultant at Kaspersky Lab.

'Most people don’t realise that if you keep your dial-up modem connected as a back-up, and click on it either intentionally or accidentally, you may be at risk.'

Rogue diallers work by changing an internet connection settings so that your computer dials a premium rate telephone number to connect to the internet.

Charges can run as high as £1.50 per minute and the switch sometimes is not discovered until the next phone bill arrives. Many diallers are porn diallers, installed when a user visits a pornographic web site.

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