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Phishers Employ New Technologies
Techtree News Staff, May 02, 2005 1456 hrs ISTAccording to a report by the APWG, phishers are using phishing sites to secretly download crimeware on a user's PC.
A report issued by the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) states that, while phishing attacks continue to grow worldwide, phishers are now employing newer technologies to attack susceptible PCs.
Phishers are now using phishing sites to secretly download criminal malware, "crimeware", onto consumer PCs to capture login and password credentials and other personal information.
The number of email-based phishing attacks, according to Tumbleweed Communication's report, has grown around 2%, though the servers supporting those attacks surged by nearly 7%.
Phishers continue to focus on financial institutions with twelve new hijacked brands in March - nine of which were financial institutions.
The APWG report also states that over the last two months, Websense Security Labs has had seen a dramatic increase in the volume of crimeware attacks. Between February and March, researchers discovered 8-10 new keylogging systems per week, and more than 100 crimeware-hosting websites per week - up from 1-2 keylogging variants and 10-15 crimeware-hosting websites per week recorded during November and December of 2004.
Peter Cassidy, APWG secretary general said, "Any Internet communications medium can be a delivery mechanism for crimeware. The goal of the phisher is shifting from tricking consumers into submitting their credentials at counterfeit websites to finding any means to plant crimeware on PCs."
"Relatively few of us have been fooled in phishing attacks - but who among us can say we've never had to pull malware - now mutating into crimeware - from a PC?" said Cassidy.
The statistics published in the report indicate United States as the country hosting the most phishing websites. While the number of active phishing sites that were reported in March were 2870. The average monthly growth rate in phishing site between July 2004 and March 2005 was about 28 percent.
Phishers are now using phishing sites to secretly download criminal malware, "crimeware", onto consumer PCs to capture login and password credentials and other personal information.
The number of email-based phishing attacks, according to Tumbleweed Communication's report, has grown around 2%, though the servers supporting those attacks surged by nearly 7%.
Phishers continue to focus on financial institutions with twelve new hijacked brands in March - nine of which were financial institutions.
The APWG report also states that over the last two months, Websense Security Labs has had seen a dramatic increase in the volume of crimeware attacks. Between February and March, researchers discovered 8-10 new keylogging systems per week, and more than 100 crimeware-hosting websites per week - up from 1-2 keylogging variants and 10-15 crimeware-hosting websites per week recorded during November and December of 2004.
Peter Cassidy, APWG secretary general said, "Any Internet communications medium can be a delivery mechanism for crimeware. The goal of the phisher is shifting from tricking consumers into submitting their credentials at counterfeit websites to finding any means to plant crimeware on PCs."
"Relatively few of us have been fooled in phishing attacks - but who among us can say we've never had to pull malware - now mutating into crimeware - from a PC?" said Cassidy.
The statistics published in the report indicate United States as the country hosting the most phishing websites. While the number of active phishing sites that were reported in March were 2870. The average monthly growth rate in phishing site between July 2004 and March 2005 was about 28 percent.
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JamesBond
,007, on May 09, 2005 01:53 AM
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