Avoiding premium rate phone dialer downloads.

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Computer Security, premium rate phone dialer downloads.

Many ISP's ( Internet Service Providers.) and antivirus companies are currently warning about an upsurge in downloaded premium rate phone dialers.
These phone dialers can be downloaded in the background while you surf, without you ever being aware of it and then they will connect to the internet using premium rate lines at a cost of up to £1.50 ( 2.25 Euro ) per minute. The first warning you may receive, will be when you or your parents! get a phone bill for hundreds of pounds.

You are most at risk if you have a dialup connection, but broadband users can also be affected if they leave their phone line plugged into the computer. Your risk of downloading a dialer is also increased if you regularly visits sites with dubious content, although you are still at risk no matter where you surf.

So what can you do to protect your self and your wallet. ( You are responsible for any bill, even though it was created without your knowledge.)
Well most of the ISP's advise checking your phone bills for premium rate numbers (09 numbers in the UK, check for your own countries premium rate numbers.), but I think this is a bit like shutting the stable door after the horse has gone, some better actions you can take are:

You can bar premium rate and international phone numbers from your line, this is probably the best solution and is widely available in the UK, just contact your phone company and ask about call barring, there may be a small charge but its worth it for peace of mind. (I would imagine that this service is available in other countries outside the UK, just call your phone company and ask.)

You can check your dialer settings to make sure there are no unrecognised dial-ups set up. These can be found by going into Internet Options on your Control Panel, and clicking on the "Connections" tab or by searching for "Dial-up Networking" in Windows Help.

You can change to a more secure browser such as Opera that does not support ActiveX plugins (These are one of the most common ways of dialers installing.), if still using Internet Explorer you should disable ActiveX downloads.

If any boxes pop up while surfing, asking you to install some software, click no, or cancel.

When installing software always read the licence information (I know its tedious, but its worth it.), it's amazing what some companies will be trying to install in the background.

You should install a firewall, this gives a considerable amount of protection, but like all software is not infallible, personally I use and recommend the freeware firewall Zonealarm, which you can find at http://www.zonelabs.com
A firewall is a good idea anyway, as you will be surprised when you first use it, just how many programs are checking for updates etc in the background, when you connect to the internet. (They are not necessarily doing anything bad, but it's usually unnecessary checking that slows your surfing, the only exception is antivirus software which should be allowed to check regularly for updates.)

You should install antivirus software, this will check for some dialers, you can find a selection of freeware antivirus software on my antivirus page.
Also very good at checking for dialers are Ad-Aware and Spybot-Search and Destroy.

Finally If you are a broadband user and you also have a conventional modem in your PC, you should physically unplug your modem lead from the wall socket.

If you live in the UK and have already fallen victim to a dialer you can contact http://www.icstis.org.uk/ who can investigate cases of dialer fraud and will be able to advise on your best course of action.
Users in other countries should contact their phone company, to see if a regulatory body governing phone use exists to help them.