Phishing Attacks on Banks Escalated in Last Six Months

As per a recent report released by Cambridge-based 'Envisional', specialist in monitoring online brand, banks experienced enormous increases in the number of phishing messages during April-September 2008 over the same months in 2007.

Phishing is the practice of sending e-mails over internet to phish personal information of recipients. Envisional's sampling task revealed nearly one half million different phishing e-mails sent to banks' customers during April-September 2008, with over 170,000 such e-mails sent out in June 2008, up 117% over the same month in 2007.

Moreover, during April-September 2008, Envisional found that fraudsters sent 460,000 e-mails to trick users into revealing their passwords, identity details and PIN codes. It is possible that a number of these e-mails were spammed to thousands of inboxes, taking the number of fraudulent e-mails into billions.

Further, during June 2008, the researchers found an aggregate of 135,000 phishing e-mails targeting customers of banks that were most phished. These e-mails accounted for 80% of the total mails captured during that month. However, the tactics of July 2008 were remarkably different. Two prominent banks were attacked, one receiving 32,000 phishing e-mails, while the other received 21,000.

Meanwhile, initial statistics for October 2008 suggested that the company would see an increase in phishing attacks on the UK banking customers during the year's autumn time, said David Franklin, General Manager, Envisional, as reported by fineextra on October 22, 2008.

Mr. Franklin further said that the 40% rise in phishing e-mails observed during the summer months might be only the beginning. He said that in this tough time, banks should be vigilant all the time and prepared to act fast to safeguard themselves as well as their customers.

Besides, scammers are presently using every opportunity to their advantage. Under normal conditions, users are relatively more alert. However, when a bank is in a crisis, a plain e-mail asking the recipient to change his password to protect his account can upset a user and influence him to click on a Web link that could lead to the theft of money from his account.

Related article: Phishing With A Redirector Code

» SPAMfighter News - 11/5/2008