'Phishing’ drops; are scammers switching tactics?

IBM Corp. finds the number of phishing attacks have come down in the first six months of 2009, compared to previous year. But it could be because of a combination of factors: more aware users, better spyware-control broswers and maybe even newer tactics from the cyber criminals.

August 26, 2009 01:59 pm | Updated December 17, 2016 04:49 am IST - SAN FRANCISCO

Internet criminals might be rethinking a favourite scam for stealing people’s personal information.

A report being released Wednesday by IBM Corp. shows a big drop in the volume of “phishing” e-mails, in which fraud artists send what looks like a legitimate message from a bank or some other company. If the recipients click on a link in a phishing e-mail, they land on a rogue Web site that captures their passwords, account numbers or any other information they might enter.

IBM’s mid-year security report found that phishing accounted for just 0.1 percent of all spam in the first six months of this year. In the same period in 2008, phishing made up 0.2 percent to 0.8 percent of all spam.

It’s not clear what, if anything, the decline means. (It also doesn’t appear to be a statistical illusion caused by an increase in other kinds of spam. IBM said overall spam volume hasn’t expanded, like it did in years past.)

“That is a huge, precipitous decline in the amount of phishing,” said Kris Lamb, director of the X-Force research team in IBM’s Internet Security Systems division, which did the report. But “I wouldn’t tell anybody that phishing has died as a threat.”

Lamb believes phishing might have fallen off because computer users are getting smarter about identifying phony Web sites. Security software is also getting better at filtering out phishing sites before Web surfers ever seen them.

It could also be that criminals are moving on from phishing to another kind of attack, involving malicious software. IBM said it is seeing more instances of “Trojan horse” programs, which are used to spy on victims.

Dean Turner, director of Symantec Corp.’s global intelligence network, who was not involved in IBM’s research, said Symantec has also noticed less phishing, but warned that it could increase again later in the year. Phishing scams spike around the holidays, he said.

IBM found that criminals are changing the types of businesses they attack with phishing. Sixty six percent of phishing targets were banks, down from 90 percent last year. Meanwhile, companies that handle online payments, like PayPal, are being mimicked in phishing messages more frequently.

To protect yourself against phishing, access sensitive sites on your own, rather than by following links in e-mails, which might lead to phishing sites.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.