Cybercriminals revive old scams to target smartphones
 

Didn't see this posted anywhere....


As mobile phones get more sophisticated, hi-tech criminals are dusting off some old tricks.
Security companies have noticed a rise in trojans known as diallers that used to be popular during the days of dial-up net access.
On a smartphone the diallers are being used to call premium rate lines leaving victims with a big bill.

Experts say the diallers are proving popular as a quick way for criminals to cash in.

Diallers were widely used during the days of dial-up net access when most people connected via modem.

Many diallers lurked on porn sites and, once they snared a victim, disconnected their modem and then placed a long distance call. Many victims were left with huge phone bills.

The economics of international calls meant that some of the cash spent on the call would be shared with the criminals. Some diallers were very sneaky in that they muted the speaker on a modem so victims could not spot when the overseas call was being placed.

Now, the security wing of software firm CA has said it is seeing a rise in diallers for smartphones. This time, instead of calling international numbers, the diallers call premium rate lines and land victims with the bill.
Writing on the CA security blog, Akhil Menon said it was seeing a "an increasing trend of trojan diallers". Mr Menon profiled one such virus, called Swapi.B, which sends premium SMS messages.

"The messages sent out are in the typical format to invoke premium services and land the mobile user with heavy mobile bills without the user's knowledge and consent," wrote Mr Menon.

Many diallers, including Swapi.B, are contracted from porn sites which disguise themselves as software, video clips or helper programs.
Mikko Hypponen, head of research at F-Secure which makes security software for mobiles, said it had seen a "handful" of diallers in recent months.

They were popular, he said, because they get round one of the big problems facing anyone wanting to make money out of Windows viruses.
"PC malware can't just directly steal money from your machine; it has to jump through hoops like keylogging your credit card number or sending spam," he said.

"However, mobile malware can just instantly steal from you by making premium-rate calls or messages," said Mr Hypponen.

Some creators of diallers were also working to ensure that it was hard to shut down the premium rate service they had set up to cash in.
Mr Hypponen said some diallers sent messages or rang many different numbers, including legitimate ones.

"The trojan can place calls to, say, 100 different premium-rate numbers, only one of which is his own number," said Mr Hypponen.
"How would you fight this? Shut down all the numbers, including the innocent ones?"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8459898.stm

Re: Cybercriminals revive old scams to target smartphones
 

I've had a few customers with wireless air cards in NC, 4 as of now, who have had something similar to this and we called it spoofing/ghosting. This sounds more like what's happening. They had international calls coming from their broadband cards, knowing they never made a call from this device. They could only text and didn't do that either. I will have them look into this. The poor customers lost their service completely and changed companies.....poor me, but I don't blame them when we couldn't figure out the problem. Thanks for the post!

Re: Cybercriminals revive old scams to target smartphones
 

What would internet security people do without the porn industry?

Re: Cybercriminals revive old scams to target smartphones
 

i don't know. but a hard reset will remove it i'm sure. i hope! god knows porn is good. even for us married folk.

Wirelessly posted (Opera/9.5 (Microsoft Windows; PPC; Opera Mobi/16643; U; en))

from what i gather, you have to consent to the download and installation of such a program, right? luckily i dont use my phone for porn...

Re: Cybercriminals revive old scams to target smartphones
 

well, when i drop the kids off at the pool, the last thing i do is drag my laptop with me. i don't recall any asking for promission to download a virus. when i use my pc, i still don't recall a ask for permission to download a virus. if you have a program on your pc or phone that requires permission to download a virus, please post it here.

Re: Cybercriminals revive old scams to target smartphones
 

I'm not very happy with these crooks who give porn a bad name

Re: Cybercriminals revive old scams to target smartphones
 

Wonder if the PIE and IE Mobile are subject to the same mountain of vulnerabilities that desktop versions are. Just had a friend have her browser jacked - it sent spam hotmail to everyone on her address book with a malicious link in it. Would hate for a phone exploit to exist that steals passwords. Fennec! Where are you?!