Phishing Attacks Continue to Spread

Phishing fraudsters are still targeting banks and credit unions but are expanding their search for online credentials to universities and social media sites, according to Cyveillance Inc.

Banks accounted for 69% and credit unions for 9% of the new brands attacked for the first time in the first half of 2010, the company said in its latest report. That compares with 60% and 28% for the previous five years, the cyber intelligence firm said.

Meanwhile, university and social media sites are growing in popularity in part because of the tendency of users of those sites to publicly reveal personal information, the company said.

Cyveillance said it detected a total of 126,644 phishing attacks during the first half of 2010, down slightly from the previous six months.

The company also said its testing of 13 leading antivirus software vendors found that only 19% of malware threats such as Trojans and other keyloggers were detected as they first appeared and only 61.7% were detected after 30 days.

Cyveillance, based in Arlington, Va., said it now provides monitoring through its clients for more than 100 million end users, scanning more than 200 million unique domain servers, 190 million websites, 80 million blogs and 90,000 message boards, discovering more than 100,000 new sites per day.

Phishing fraudsters are still targeting banks and credit unions but are expanding their search for online credentials to universities and social media sites, according to Cyveillance Inc.

Banks accounted for 69% and credit unions for 9% of the new brands attacked for the first time in the first half of 2010, the company said in its latest report. That compares with 60% and 28% for the previous five years, the cyber intelligence firm said.

Meanwhile, university and social media sites are growing in popularity in part because of the tendency of users of those sites to publicly reveal personal information, the company said.

Cyveillance said it detected a total of 126,644 phishing attacks during the first half of 2010, down slightly from the previous six months.

The company also said its testing of 13 leading antivirus software vendors found that only 19% of malware threats such as Trojans and other keyloggers were detected as they first appeared and only 61.7% were detected after 30 days.

Cyveillance, based in Arlington, Va., said it now provides monitoring through its clients for more than 100 million end users, scanning more than 200 million unique domain servers, 190 million websites, 80 million blogs and 90,000 message boards, discovering more than 100,000 new sites per day.