Originally published March 8 2005
Phishing scams are growing; attacks grew 42% in January alone
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
There was a 42% rise in phishing emails in January, which is a stark increase compared to the average 30% growth average in the previous six months. These emails are designed to send consumers to phony sites that request account data, allowing phishers to get information about people who are taken in by these scams.
There's no end in sight to the relentless rise of phishing scams, with a new report highlighting rapid growth in both phishing emails and websites.
The Anti Phishing Working Group (APWG) reports alarming figures for January, with a 42 per cent rise in emails compared with the preceding month.
This is well above the 30 per cent average growth rate the past six months.
Phishing websites too are also growing more numerous.
There were around 2,500 reported in January, bringing the average monthly increase over the past six months to 28 per cent.
The financial sector was the most frequent focus of these attacks.
victims to visit that site and enter personal information which can then be captured and used to access the victim's real account.
Although much of this type of crime is put down to organized crime gangs from Eastern Europe, the global picture is very different.
The majority of the phishing sites are hosted within the US at 32 per cent, with China, Taiwan and Korea also accounting for a sizeable slice of the phishing pie.
The APWG also noted a growing trend to use cross-site scripting attacks, exploiting vulnerabilities in browsers to make phishing sites appear verifiably authentic and secure, and to help redirect victims to the spoofed sites.
The group also noted increased use of ports other than 80, indicating increased activity from computers compromised with a back door, allowing criminals to remotely launch such attacks.
In view of this there were also increased numbers of Trojans that could monitor keyboard and Internet activity, recording the data and sending it back to the attacker.
All content posted on this site is commentary or opinion and is protected under Free Speech. Truth Publishing LLC takes sole responsibility for all content. Truth Publishing sells no hard products and earns no money from the recommendation of products. NaturalNews.com is presented for educational and commentary purposes only and should not be construed as professional advice from any licensed practitioner. Truth Publishing assumes no responsibility for the use or misuse of this material. For the full terms of usage of this material, visit www.NaturalNews.com/terms.shtml