The Hindu Business Line : India in top ten phishing list

India has got the dubious record of being among the top 10 countries where sites involved in `phishing' are hosted the most, according to a new report released by Anti-Phishing Working Group.

Phishing is a form of online identity theft that steals consumers' personal identity data and financial account credentials.

Phishing is done by sending `spoofed' e-mails that lead consumers to counterfeit Web sites that are designed to trick recipients into divulging financial data such as account usernames and passwords.

While the US has the largest number of such Web sites (35.5 per cent), India has managed to take the 10th spot (1.66%), according to the report. Other countries in the top 10 list include China (second highest after US), Korea, Japan, France, Canada and Germany.

The APWG also reported today that the number of crimeware-spreading sites globally has surged to an all-time high in June with 2,945 such sites detected by its researchers - up 40 per cent from May and nearly 10 per cent higher than the previous record. "It makes you wonder what new levels of automation phishers may be achieving to get this kind of growth. While phishers still exploit e-mail to dupe consumers, it is clear that the entire surface of the Web is increasingly being viewed by phishers as a useful attack vector as well," said the APWG Secretary-General, Mr Peter Cassidy, in a press release.

"June saw the most password stealing malicious code URLs tracked to date. We attribute this to the advancement of monetary gain that is being made by utilising crimeware applications and Web sites. This is also attributed to the increased use of exploit kits being sold and bought on the Internet," said Mr Dan Hubbard, Vice-President of Security for Websense Inc.