Reports of Email Fraud and Phishing Attacks Increase by 180% in April

This analysis identifies that email fraud and phishing attacks grew by more than 180% in April, with an average of almost 38 new, unique attacks sent out to millions of consumers each day. Phishing attacks use spoofed e-mails and fraudulent websites to fool recipients into divulging personal financial data such as credit card numbers, account usernames and passwords, social security numbers, etc. By hijacking the trusted brands of well-known banks, online retailers, ISPs and credit card companies, phishers are able to convince up to 5% of recipients to respond to them. The result of these scams is that consumers suffer credit card fraud, identity theft, and financial loss. In April, there were 1,125 unique phishing attacks reported to the Anti-Phishing Working Group. This was a 180% increase over the number of attacks reported in March 2004, and represents a monthly growth rate of over 75% per month since December. While the average number of phishing attacks per day in April was 37.5, analyzing this information on a weekly basis shows an increasing trend with a peak of 39.9 attacks per day in the second week of April. Further, this marks the first time that weve seen more than 200 unique attacks in a week -- occurring four times in April. -- The company most-targeted by phishing attacks in April was Citibank with 475 unique attacks. This represents the first time that eBay was not the most targeted company. -- The most-targeted industry sector was Financial Services with 832 unique attacks. -- The Financial Services sector averaged almost 35 phishing attacks per company in April. -- In April, the new technique of creating floating windows over a users Address Bar, disguising the fact that the user is on a fraudulent website, continued to gain momentum and sophistication.