I just got my phone bill back and to my horror, I see in the itemised section a 13 minute call to a premium (090) number. Because the call came from my second phoneline (to which only the computer is connected) at 5am when I was sound asleep, the possibility of someone in the family dialing naughty numbers is next to zero. On the other hand I have a habit of leaving my machine on and connected all night while I download stuff, so it is the prime culprit. Does anyone know of a program or virus that can do this? If so how do I find it, delete it and stop it from happening again?
The strange thing is that it only happened once, last Tuesday. I would have thought a virus would be constantly trying to dial out.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
Likely a porn dialer that has nestled itself somewhere on your PC. Download Ad-Aware to kill it, then read this.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
That was my first thought, but I have ZoneAlarm running, which should stop any unauthorised programs from accessing the internet.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Well, dialing a toll number isn't exactly internet access, I don't think. ZoneAlarm might not stop it if there's no actual data being transferred.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 24) on :
Actually, I would think Zonealarm won't even blink if the data being transferred isn't going over a network connection. It might not even blink if the protocol isn't routable for that matter, although I'm not sure.
I mean, you don't expect it to bark at you if you're transferring stuff over USB, parallel or serial ports, so why would a land-line modem be any different?
Time to go over your computer with a fine-toothed comb.
PS: Are you using the second-line for a dial-up modem? If you are, you could check your system logs to see if you were disconnected to dial that number at that time.
PSS: One would think that it would be cheaper to get broadband than a second phone-line. If you need fax, I'm pretty sure there are online services for that.
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
Kris could be in a situation like me where a second line for dialup internet is required because broadband isn't available...
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
I got EVERYONE beat.
My family has a total of EIGHT phone lines coming into our house. Four of them are cell phones. One is the family number. Another is my dad's business number, with an 800-number tied into it. Finally, he's got a business/fax line.
And that doesn't include the broadband cable connection... we've got too damn many lines coming in!
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Er, cell phones don't count as "lines coming in". Since they aren't "lines", and if they are, they don't "come in to your house".
Besides, half the UK can match that if we are including mobile numbers.
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)