Dialers

A dialer (US) or dialler (UK) is an electronic device that is connected to a telephone line in order to monitor the dialed numbers and alter them to seamlessly provide services that otherwise require lengthy access codes to be dialed. A dialer automatically inserts and modifies the numbers depending on the time of day, country or area code dialed allowing the user to subscribe to the service providers who offer the best rates.

Dialers are necessary to connect to the internet (at least for non-broadband connections) but some dialers are designed to connect to premium-rate numbers. The providers of such dialers often search for security holes that may be present in the operating system installed on the user’s computer and use them to change the computer to dial up through their number, pocketing the additional money for themselves. Alternatively, some dialers inform the user what it is that they are doing with the promise of special content, accessible only via the special number.

Users with DSLs (or similar broadband connections) are usually not affected. A dialer can be downloaded and installed, but dialing in is not possible as there are no regular phone numbers in the DSL network and users will not typically have their dial-up modem, if any, connected to a phone line. However, if an ISDN adapter or additional analog modem is installed, the dialer might still be able to get a connection.

Malicious dialers can be identified by the following characteristics:

• A download pop-up opens when opening a website.
• On the website there is only a small hint, if any, about the price.
• The download starts even if the cancel button has been clicked.
• The dialer installs as default connection without any notice.
• The dialer creates unwanted connections by itself and without user interaction.
• The dialer does not show any notice about the price (only few do) before dialing in.
• The high price of the connection is not being shown while connected.
• The dialer normally cannot be uninstalled, only with serious effort.

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There are currently 26 articles listed on dialers.

Name	Threat Level	Detection Count	Date
All-In-One Telcom	7/10	27	April 24, 2008
Desire Dialer			July 20, 2008
Dialer:Win32/Adialer	8/10	0	September 24, 2012
Dialer.Dialpass			December 22, 2010
Dialer.Mageos	6/10	0	November 28, 2019
Dialer.Siggen	7/10	0	March 30, 2011
Dialer.Tibs	7/10	0	January 27, 2010
Dialer.Xpehbam.biz_dialer	8/10	2	August 31, 2011
DyFuCA	7/10	710	June 8, 2008
Family Sex Dialer			March 28, 2006
GMSoft Dialer			April 19, 2008
GoInDirect	7/10	21	March 1, 2008
InstantAccess	5/10	196	September 14, 2008
Jab dialer			April 12, 2011
Mainpean Stardialer			September 30, 2008
MasterDialer	7/10	0	July 9, 2008
Porn-Dialer.GBDialer	7/10	0	November 30, 2007
QA.TEST.AppLive2	4/10	1,845	November 28, 2019
SDBot	9/10	0	May 23, 2008
Taskmgr	7/10	33	August 8, 2008
Tibs	7/10	0	March 29, 2006
Troj/Dialer-HD			May 13, 2010
Trojan.Dialer.qn	9/10	0	October 30, 2007
Trojan.Dialer.yz	9/10	0	February 8, 2008
Win32.Adialer			May 2, 2012

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