Mobile Game Trojan Calls the South Pole

UgLyPuNk writes with an excerpt from Gamepron.com: "Freeware games can actually cost you more money than their pay-to-play cousins, as mobile gamers in the UK have learned. A 'booby-trapped' version of a popular Windows Mobile game has been sneakily spending their money while they sleep – by dialing phone numbers in the Antarctic behind their backs."

Comments

Re:Profiting is the easy part

[DNS-and-BIND]

Funny, back when I used to work in toll fraud at one of the Big Three, we regularly had overseas calls in the $3-4 range per minute. A popular destination was Vanuatu along with some other Pacific islands, easily the most expensive of them all. I never really understood porn over voice. Any time I saw the country codes for Pacific islands, I blocked them immediately. Another popular destination for toll fraud was 809, which was part of NANPA but still counted as overseas (Caribbean islands) and thus ran up big charges quickly. The most expensive fee per minute I ever saw was a puzzling destination of INMARSAT. What kind of country is that, I thought to myself as I dialed the number to check what it was. Seaman Mumble picked up the call, it was the bridge of a Navy destroyer! INMARSAT was/is a satellite communications provider for ships at sea. $5.50 per minute, the highest I ever saw.

The point of this rambling post is that toll fraud seems much cheaper these days. Fifty cents a minute to Antarctica seems like nothing compared to rates back in the day.