Phishing Attacks Target A German in Every 20 Seconds

According to the data collected by the German email security provider 'eleven' in June 2010, in every twenty seconds, a German netizen falls victim to a phishing attack.

The security firm highlighted that the preferred targets of phishers included online payment services, followed by the user accounts of social networking websites.

The firm reported that more than 96% of the phishing e-mails scanned by the 'eleven' targeted PayPal to mislead recipients into disclosing their sensitive data.

The subject line of these phishing e-mails read - for example "Important: *** For the safety of your account we need a profile update ***" or "NOTICE: *** For the safety of your account we need a profile update ***". An HTML form would also be attached with the message in which the e-mail receivers were asked to fill in their personal information, including their credit card information, PayPal account details and passwords.

According to the firm, spam has been propagating since the beginning of the year 2010 that has made Germany one of the key spam relaying nations. This firm's finding becomes more clear with 'eleven' warning Internet users about various spam campaigns in the last week of June, 2010.

The firm has also revealed that the spam e-mails in these spam campaigns enclosed an HTML attachment which, when opened, triggered a JavaScript that redirected user's web browser to the target website of spammers'. These are mainly the pharmacy websites that are often used in spam campaigns. However, one spam e-mail detected by 'eleven' redirected the users web browser to a social networking website used in the past for phishing purposes.

The trick is used to avoid spam filters which look for links to known spam or phishing websites in the e-mail content. This system makes the spam detection process more difficult as the e-mail doesn't contain a link, but redirects the browser to the aimed website by means of JavaScript.

According to the firm, the volume of malware has been surging since the commencement of the year 2010. As per the data released by 'eleven' in the mid-June 2010, computer trojans encompassed approximately three quarters of all malware sent through e-mail.

Related article: Phishing With A Redirector Code

» SPAMfighter News - 8/7/2010