Phishing News – Week Ending 12 March 2010

It’s been a couple of weeks between posts again.  Amazing how time just flies by when you’re busy launching a company…  So, there’s more content here than usual, but all of it is relevant and interesting.

Top of mind for us here at Truedomain is the growing recognition that email authentication – which is the foundation of the services we provide to our customers – is being increasingly pointed to as a key weapon in the fight against email borne phishing attacks.   Much of the phishing related news and commentary coming out of the recent RSA Conference in San Francisco reflects this trend.

Another sit-up-and-take-notice trend: all of the data and reports coming out of both corporate and analyst organizations support the fact that the phishing problem continues to grow.  Not only have the volume of attacks continued to rise, but phishers are also diversifying their target lists, finding a glut of new “soft targets” in universities and  small to medium size businesses.

To wit, RSA reported that the volume of phishing attacks rose a whopping 21% in January.  While the growth alone is cause for concern, the trend doubly surprising given that volume typically tends to decrease in January when compared to December because Christmas is generally a big driver of phishing attacks.

More and more news of phishing attacks is also starting to make its way out of countries other than the US.  For example, the Gulf Daily News in  Bahrain reported that in less than three months, the number of organizations being targeted has tripled, and each associated phishing site, of which 800 have been identified, rakes in US$25,000 per month.  That’s a total of US$20 million per month, just in Bahrain!

So with that, enjoy the reading.

Top News
RSA | Phishing reaches record high in January
Infoworld | Fraudsters hone their attacks with spear phishing
eSecurity Planet | Phishers targeting more (and bigger) Fish
All Spammed Up | Bank/Customer Lawsuits Over Phishing Scams on the Rise
SF Gate | New phishing scams attack with precision
CTV News | Dozens of U.S. defense contractors, agencies hacked
SF Gate | Consumers found vulnerable to e-mail threats

Trends & Opinion
New New Internet | Cyveillance Finds Targeting of New Brands Up 5o Percent
PR Newswire | IBM X-Force(R) Report Reveals Phishing, Document Related Threats Rising Dramatically
Information Security Magazine | Email authentication methods critical in fight against phishing
Bankinfo Security | Phishing Update: No Brand is Safe
Citywire | Online banking fraud up 14% amid wave of phishing attacks
Network World | Bogus intranets scam university students
Cloud Security Alliance | Top Threats
Softpedia | Paypal the most heavily phished brand of the last three months

Highlighted Attacks
SperoNews | Phishing Attack at University of Michigan
The Badger Herald | Phishing scam targets UW email accounts
Tradingmarkets.com | Western Union Phishing Scam
Daily Lobo | Phishing scams targeting UNM are potential identity-stealers
Oregon Live | Phishing scam targets Bank of Cascades clients
SearchSecurity.com | Medical identify fraudsters target health care info, experts say
SPAMFighter | Fake Charities Send Phishing E-Mails Related to Haiti Earthquake
SPAMFighter | Phishing Scam Targets Frequent Flyers of American Airlines
University of Wisconsin | Campus urged to beware of new phishing scams
Spartan Daily | Phishers bait students to give info
News Channel 7 | UPS Email Scam
Bahrain Daily News | Phishing alert for banks
Copenhagen Post | PBS warns against phishing
SPAMFighter | ABSA Warns Customers of Fresh Phishing E-mails
Fairfield Mirror | Something’s Phishy in the University Email
SPAMFighter | Netizens in Wisconsin Attacked by Phishing Scam
SPAMFighter | Phishing E-mail Targets Lee County Bank Customers
TV News 10 | Crooks Take Over Woman’s E-mail Account, Steal Her Identity