UK - The Most Widely Phished Nation

Monday, 07 June 2010 

RSA Security has stated in its latest Online Fraud Report that phishing attacks surged 3% in April 2010 to over 18,000 attacks, and users in UK were the most favorite target who received nearly half of these attacks.

As per the findings of the security firm, phishing attacks rose again April 2010, after witnessing slight decline in February and March.

The report lists UK as the topmost country in terms if attack volume as it received 44% of total phishing assaults in April 2010, followed by the US. However, there was a marginal decline in attack volume experienced by South Africa, which dropped from 10% to just 7% during the same month.

Moreover, the UK secured its second position on the list of top ten nations by attacked brands. US companies topped the list with 49%, while the UK stood at 17%. Overall 222 brands were attacked in April 2010, which is 19% down compared to March 2010. Besides this, the number of brands that suffered less than 5 attacks also reflected a decline - as compared to 155 brands in March 2010, it was only 130 brands in April 2010.

Also, with a 3.5% margin among the phishing-affected top ten countries, UK slipped to number eight in April 2010 from number one in March 2010.

The RSA study also reveals that the US, South Korea, China, Australia and Canada hosted 85% of the phishing attacks identified by the firm around the world in April 2010. The security firm claims that the personal information continues to be in high demand in the underground market.

It is notable that till date, the RSA Anti-Fraud Command Center has shut down more than 300,000 phishing scams.

Meanwhile, the RSA report just confirms the recent MessageLabs Intelligence report from Symantec Hosted Services (SHS) that found a 0.2% increase in phishing attacks. SHS has also placed UK netizens on the top for receiving the highest number of phishing e-mails.

www.spamfighter.com