India Enters the Top Ten Phishing Countries

India has joined the league of phishing attacks. In 2007, India stood at 14th position in phishing attacks globally, and this year, it is in the list of top ten. For instance, the Bangalore police had reported almost 40 cases of phishing last year, as reported by redorbit on October 7, 2008.

In 2008, 30 cases of phishing have already been reported. During November 2007, Bangalore Corps Detectives held a man named Joseph Marci, who during August 2006-August 2007, had hacked almost 17 bank accounts of famous commercial banks - HDFC, ICICI, Citibank, and Axis, siphoning small amounts continuously to have amassed Rs 3.54 Lakh (approximately US$ 7320).

Websense, an online security company, claimed that in 2007, they had spoken to almost 450 CIOs (Chief Information Officer) of India's famous companies. It was found that around 57% of those firms had been attacked by phishing attacks and 38% were targeted by spyware, in spite of installing updated anti-virus programs and firewalls.

Further, a unique trend has come to forefront in which attackers prefer to corrupt authentic sites rather than creating fraudulent sites for launching phishing attacks, circulating worms, etc.

As per the security company, during the first half of 2008, over 75% of sites in India, which Websense called harmful, were actually the Websites with great reputations and were being attacked by hackers. Attackers are also targeting the social networking sites and Web 2.0 scenario to expand their attacks.

Further, Symantec claimed that in 2008, cyberspace has witnessed a noticeable rise in threats from harmful code as 499,811 threats arise in 2008 against 212,101 in 2007, implying an increase of 136%.

Security experts also said that Internet Explorer, which is used by most of the Indians, contains no built-in antivirus tools. Chrome, the latest browser of Google, or Mozilla contain in-built anti phishing technique. So, users should use them.

Further, as spammers have shifted their attention to Web 2.0 components of the emerging Webscape. Dynamic scanning of content and adaptive classification of content is needed for the security of businesses and their information.

Related article: India Remains an Easy Target for Hackers in '06

» SPAMfighter News - 10/15/2008