Fine for phone application sending premium-rate texts
cheap abercrombie ukUK regulator Phonepay Plus has fined a Russian company ￡50,000 for serious breaches of its code regarding premium-rate phone services.The company, Connect Ltd, trading as SMSBill, created an application for Android phones that provided access to games.When the application was installed, a text message was also sent from the phone to a premium-rate number.The phone owner was then charged ￡10 for an auto-reply message.On the sixth page of the terms and conditions presented when the application was downloaded was a notice that "charges of about ￡5" would be incurred.The regulator has now said all affected customers must be refunded within the next three months."You have to read the small print and people never do," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos."They were sneaky with the wording."Sophos researcher Vanja Svajcer and saw the additional malware installing itself on the phone.Pricing information Phonepay Plus, which regulates services paid for by phone in the UK, said it had also received complaints from the public about the service."Complainants raised a number of concerns, including lack of pricing information and charging without consent," it said in its adjudication of the case.It also found Connect Ltd had not registered with it, although this is not a legal requirement.In addition to the fine and customer refunds, Connect Ltd must also submit any proposals for new premium-rate services to the regulator before launching them in the UK, Phonepay Plus said.
abercrombie outletSpokeswoman Dr Shirley Dent added if the company failed to comply, Phonepay Plus could impose a larger fine or ban Connect Ltd from operating in the UK phone service market for up to five years."This was purely happening on Android phones," said Mr Cluley."There is a lot less that attacks iPhones because Apple is more rigorous in its vetting of apps. With Android, it's easy to install apps from elsewhere - that's one of its selling points." Apple has released a software update, designed to protect users of its Leopard operating system from malware attacks.The firm had already been forced to rush out security updates for machines working on its newer Snow Leopard and Lion operating systems.It follows the Flashback trojan attack which security experts believe infected up to half a million Macs.Apple has faced criticism for the time it has taken to react to the threat.Disabling Flash The Flashback malware targeted a vulnerability in the Java software that is used in Windows machines, Apple computers and many others. Macs were the biggest victims because Apple did not patch the loophole in its version of Java for several weeks after the vulnerability became known.Of its latest patch Apple said: "The update removes the most common variants of the Flashback malware. If the Flashback malware is found, a dialog will notify you that malware was removed. In some cases, the update may need to restart your computer in order to completely remove the Flashback malware."
abercrombie and fitch outletFor added security, the patch also disables versions of Adobe Flash Player that do not include the latest security updates, and encourages users to get the latest version directly from Adobe's website."This additional level of protection when it comes to Safari users running Flash is good to see - as Adobe's software is so frequently exploited by malware authors and malicious hackers to infect web surfers," said Graham Cluley, senior consultant at security firm Sophos Tiger vulnerability It shows, he added, that the firm is keen to cover all bases."It's encouraging to see Apple has not left users of this older version of the Mac OS X operating system completely out in the cold when it comes to protecting against the latest threats. Clearly they realise that it's not good for the Apple Mac's image if older computers connected to the internet are harbouring malware," said Mr Cluley.But he added that more may still need to be done."Of course, there are still users of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger out there - they don't have the benefit of these security updates and are effectively playing a dangerous game with their systems as the malware threat on the Mac platform increases."Apple is due to release its latest OS - Mountain Lion - in late summer 2012.Google has disputed claims that many Android phones have been infected with a virus that makes them churn out spam.discovered evidence of Android phones being enrolled into a botnet.Botnets typically use infected PCs as spam generators but Mr Zink said he found evidence that Android smartphones were being used in the same way.In a statement, Google said there was no evidence to support Mr Zink's claim.The search giant's investigation suggested the junk messages originated on PCs but the spammers sending them formatted them to look like they came from Android smartphones. "Our analysis suggests that spammers are using infected computers and a fake mobile signature to try to bypass anti-spam mechanisms in the email platform they're using," said Google.
abercrombie uk By taking this step, said Google, the junk mail would have a better chance of defeating spam filters and ensure that messages reached inboxes.If the spam were coming from a botnet made up of Android phones, it would be the first ever.Mobile security specialist Lookout also questioned Mr Zink's initial claim. head of the firm Kevin Mahaffey said it was possible that the spam was originating from lots of Android phones infected with a malicious program.However, he said, Lookout's investigation had also uncovered some serious issues with the Yahoo mail app for Android that suggested it was a risk for all users of it. Lookout had told Yahoo about the problems which were now being worked on.Address origin Mr Zink agreed that it was not proven that Android phones had been compromised. He added that it was "entirely possible" that the spammers had faked the message formatting to make it look like it originated on a phone.However, he added, there was no doubt that the number of malicious programs written for Android was on the increase. Given that he said: "The reason these messages appear to come from Android devices is because they did come from Android devices."Chester Wisniewski, senior security advisor at Sophos, He said that although Sophos did not have a sample of the malware sending the spam in question there was evidence to suggest it came from smartphones.Sophos could find no hint that the formatting on the messages was faked, he said, and some elements of what it had seen would be impossible to spoof.
abercrombie and fitch ukIn addition, he said, much of the spam was coming from net addresses owned by mobile operators. Attempts to tighten the student visa system have been strongly attacked by a committee of MPs as "poorly planned and ill thought-out", and creating "chaos".The report from the Public Accounts Committee criticised the points-based visa system introduced in 2009.It came as London London Metropolitan University launched legal action over a ban on recruiting overseas students.The UK Border Agency issued the ban after finding many overseas students did not have the right to be in the UK.The government agency said the decision to revoke the university's licence to sponsor non-EU students was the "correct course of action" and it would "strongly contest" any legal action. It had found that more than a quarter of a sample of students studying at the university did not have permission to stay in the country and there were "systemic failings" in the system.But the institution said there was no evidence of this and it challenged the evidence gathered by the UKBA in the "strongest possible terms"."London Met appreciates that as the first UK university to be placed in this position it has a duty to the sector to try and bring an end to the damage arising from UKBA's decision," it said in a statement on Monday evening.Malcolm Gillies, vice-chancellor of the university, told the BBC much of the UKBA's case is "wrong"."It is 22 pages of very detailed statistical argument and we are able to prove through working night and day over the last five days with some of the best immigration lawyers in the country, that in so many areas it is highly flawed.
