Phishing Attacks Drop Sharply in January-February

Network Box (the managed security company) recently conducted a study according to which, phishing attacks dropped dramatically from 55.59% during January 2010 to 17.86% during February 2010.

The company discloses the figures of virus attacks. Network Box states that Brazil has been most prolific in virus attacks over the past few months. But now there has been an 8.87% fall in viruses generated, taking the country down to the 3rd position after the USA and Korea.

Viruses originated from the USA have dropped during January-February 2010 from 15.7% to 9.31%. However, the country remains high on the virus generation lists. Viruses originating from the UK have declined 0.37%. Despite that, the country has climbed one position higher on the top ten lists and is presently No.5 in producing viruses. One more country to experience virus decline is Korea viz., by 2.25%.

Explaining why viruses fell, the security researchers stated that it was normal that phishing attacks decreased following the peak of Christmas season. However, in 2010, the trend was slow, as phishing continued to be high all throughout January 2010.

This demonstrates that possibly phishers changed their strategies. Conventionally, major events particularly Valentine's Day and Christmas have been abused, with suppliers of malware sending related web-links through e-mails. But currently, the attacks are being executed through social-networking websites like Facebook and Twitter.

The criminals are also cashing in on the kind of interaction that takes place on these networks. People are very fond of sharing the latest news about celebrities and desire to remain up-to-date with the stories' developments. Consequently, a very appropriate environment is created for the proliferation of malware.

Simon Heron, Web Security Analyst at Network Box, states that phishing attacks which decline after the Christmas have taken time to do so this year (2010). The latest surge in phishing and spam attacks across Twitter shows that creators of malicious programs are persistently seeking new ways to victimize the e-mail recipients. They take the guise of friends or exploit the latest breaking-in news, anything that will get Web-surfers to click malicious links, as reported by Network Box on March 1, 2010.

Related article: Phishing With A Redirector Code

» SPAMfighter News - 3/9/2010