CERT-IN: Phishing Attacks Have Grown in India

The CERT-IN (Indian Computer Emergency Response Team), which manages computer securities incidence in India, said that the Indian products have become immensely popular among hackers for phishing after the US.

The data released by the organization revealed that out of the total products hacked in 2007, 80% were from US and 15% belonged to India. The remaining 2% were from Italy and the other 3% were from various countries.

Further, security analysts and researchers informed that India's official domain name ".in" is noted with the leading country specific highest domain hosting phishing page. The most frequently attacked domain under "in" is ".a", estimating about 31.8% and ".ina" is estimating to almost 30% of the total domain names that are accessed for phishing objectives.

CERT-IN also noticed that with the rising awareness among the users, phishers have also become equally sophisticated and make use of developed techniques for phishing purposes.

As told by the CERT-IN, some of the latest methods used by hackers are phishing based malware and Trojan such as logging system, which operates in the background and attack the user's account details and sends information to hackers without user's prior consent. "Storm BOT" is the most active malware used to launch attacks on financial institutions and banks. "Rock Phish" and "Fast fluk phishing" are the other tools used for phishing purposes.

Interestingly, security experts noticed another change in hackers techniques. Earlier, they always retorted to leading brand names, online retailers or financial firms to launch their attacks.

But now, as per CERT-IN, phishers have opted for smaller business groups as users feel more secure with them and think that they will not be attacked. In May 2008, almost 82 cyber security events were reported to CERT-IN, out of which 27% were related to phishing.

Also, Symantec has also come out with Security Threat Report for April 2008 which informs growth in the number of phishing attacks. As per this reports, India holds 14th position globally that hosts phishing sites.

Related article: Court Acquits Student From Generating Fake Boarding Passes

» SPAMfighter News - 7/16/2008