Phishers In China Different From Those In Other Countries

According to Symantec's monthly report of May 2009 State of phishing released in June 2009, while in the majority of countries, phishing attacks seek to access consumers' online banking credentials, in China, such attacks seek to access users' e-commerce credentials. The reason -many Chinese banks have not yet gone online, according to senior director of anti-spam engineering Dermot Harnett of Symantec who is also one of the authors of the report. Internetnews published this on June 9, 2009.

Harnett says that in China phishers target attacks against auction sites, while in rest of the countries, they target against banks, adding that from the time Chinese banks would begin to enforce Internet banking, their users too would be targeted with phishing.

States Symantec that during May 2009, there were an aggregate of 28,800 phishing URLs, a rise of 15% since March-April 2009.

Furthermore according to the company, some 42% of phishing URLs were created with automated toolkits, which boosted the construction of phishing websites.

Meanwhile, this information arrives when Chinese computers are increasingly being used to attack end-users in other parts of the world. Say the security researchers that criminals operating in countries outside China often perpetrate such attacks. Also, according to them, the number of attacks from U.S. and Russia has been twice that of those originating from China.

Evidently, the reason for Chinese computers as instruments of attack is the formers poor configuration; however, a detailed investigation suggests that China isn't the source of attacks. It is these improperly configured PCs that are to be blamed for the deteriorating quality of the Chinese Internet. Meanwhile, MessageLabs in its May 2009 Intelligence Report reveals China as second among the most spam afflicted and virus infected countries in the globe, after only Brazil.

Nevertheless, Chinese government, serious about the security issue, is acting towards enforcing a fresh policy, according to which, all new computers to be sold from 1st July 2009 would be required to have software, which would prevent infected websites. Additionally, the sites held back would be regularly updated through a connection with a central unit that the government would control.

Related article: Phishers Expand Their Sphere of Attacks

» SPAMfighter News - 15-06-2009

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