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Dial-up scam sends phone bills soaring

Dial-up Internet users are being hit by a new scam in which their log-on connections are diverted through premium-rate telephone numbers, socking them with hefty phone bills.

Rip-offs involving premium rate numbers are nothing new: particularly the trick of inviting the public to ring in for what turn out to be non-existent prizes.

But in the latest twist, fraudsters are using viruses to change the dial-up number supplied by the user’s Internet service provider (ISP) to a premium number, security experts say.

Britain’s Independent Committee for the Supervision of Standards of Telephone Information Services (ICSTIS) said it has received “a significant rise” in complaints related to the scam and has urged the National Hi-Tech Crime Squad to investigate.

Experts suspect the numbers are being changed by a type of computer “trojan”, a malicious piece of software that installs itself on an unwitting computer user’s PC.

Trojans, a favourite tool for Internet fraudsters, are increasingly being used to take over users’ machines. “Trojan horses secrete themselves on computers and are able to change the Internet settings so that dial-up connections always call premium-rate numbers rather than the regular ISP codes,” said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for British-based security firm Sophos Plc.

The ICSTIS has being cracking down on premium rate scams of late. For example, it fined a group of companies earlier this year 450,000 pounds for sending people unsolicited text messages, often dangling a prize, with a premium-rate call-back number. reuters

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