According to data from Kaspersky Lab, 70.6% of the financial phishing attacks used fake bank webpages to acquire confidential user information and steal money from bank accounts.
The same source reveals that cybercriminals use the brand names of major companies with large client databases as a way to easily lure consumers to a fake website. Among attacks on e-payment systems, almost 90% of phishing attacks in this category fell on one of five international brands including PayPal, American Express, MasterCard International, Visa or Western Union. PayPal was the leading brand exploited, as the amount of attacks on this system reached 44.12%.
The report also shows how cybercriminals exploit the names of online stores in phishing scams. During the period under review, Amazon was used in 61% of phishing attacks in this category. Other brands that were used included Apple (12.89%) and eBay (12%).
Phishing is a fraudulent scheme used by cybercriminals to obtain confidential consumer data with the help of fake webpages imitating Internet resources.
The “Financial Cyber Threats in 2013” report used data obtained voluntarily from Kaspersky Security Network participants. Statistics about phishing attacks were obtained based on Kaspersky Lab web anti-phishing detections.
Every day we send out a free e-mail with the most important headlines of the last 24 hours.
Subscribe now