UK regulators fine premium providers for malware

The British regulator PhonepayPlus (an independent organization that oversees standards for providing premium subscriptions) fined A1 Agregator, a company that conducts premium subscriptions by sending SMS to short numbers, for $ 78 thousand. The reason for the fine was the provision by the specified provider of payment for messages in infected applications, including fake ones (disguised as Angry Birds and other popular games), in which each time the application was opened, an SMS message worth 5 pounds was sent (three messages were sent). The reason for the investigation was one complaint of a British citizen who discovered significant write-offs from the account.

The malicious phony applications themselves (designated by Lookout antivirus lab as Ru-Fraud) were distributed via the Android Market (removed by Google back in December 2011), as well as through a number of third-party application directories. In addition to collecting a fine, the regulator decided to return all payments made to all victims of fraud, and also forbade any premium subscriptions without special permission from the regulator.

What do you think, dear hub users, whether mobile operators and premium providers should be responsible for such "services" (after all, sometimes such malicious applications open the window of the license agreement indicating the payment for premium services) or it is imperative to calculate the attackers themselves, and Also, what do you do if you come across such a scam? Where do you complain and where do you send reports?

Source PhonepayPlus via Information Week .