India 3rd Most Targeted Country By Phishing Attacks On Brands: Report

RSA, The Security Division of EMC has announced the findings of its May 2013 Fraud Report, ranking India amongst top three countries targeted by phishing attacks by brands; the other countries being US and UK. Close to 46 percent of all phishing attacks worldwide in April were on brands present in these three countries. India ranked 4th on the chart, targeted with 8 percent of the total phishing volume worldwide.

In April 2013, there was 10 percent increase in the total number of global phishing attacks as compared to the previous month, with a total of 26,902 unique phishing attacks identified by RSA.

As per the report, number of phishing attacks recorded monthly is known to vary, and there is limited capability to forecast a trend that is so dependent on fraudster resources. Although total is often tricky to predict, some seasonal trends do repeat every year such as the holiday shopping season when a rise in phishing is almost expected. Adding to that list, we can include large database hacks that release the information on millions of users on internet. Phishing attacks in April 2013 have so far only shown a moderate increase over the previous month, but with constant headlines such as the recent announcement of over 40,000 Facebook accounts allegedly hacked, we may see a surge before the quarter is out.

Other highlights of the report are:

• Brands in the U.S., UK, India, Brazil and Australia were targeted by almost 54 percent of phishing attacks in April.

• In April, 311 brands were targeted in phishing attacks, marking a 20 percent increase from last month. Of the 311 targeted brands, 52 percent endured five attacks or less.

• U.S. remained the top country on the chart, targeted with 46 percent of the total phishing volume in April. India with 8 percent ranked at 4th.