The Hindu Business Line : Chennai cos most hit by phishing attacks: Survey

Bangalore April 29 Chennai firms are the worst hit by phishing attacks, followed by firms in Bangalore and Mumbai, according to a study by security firm, Websense.

Phishing is a scam that uses e-mail or a fake Web site to trick users into divulging important account information.

"Considering that phishing was virtually unheard of till a year ago, this shows the shape of things to come," said Mr Surendra Singh, Head (South East Asia and India), Websense Inc, speaking to Business Line recently.

In its survey of 320 organisations across Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai, and Hyderabad between January and March 2007, Websense found that while 66 per cent of businesses in Chennai received phishing attacks in that period, 58 per cent of Bangalore and 55 per cent of Mumbai firms were attacked.

Hyderabad dollowed these cities in the, with only 54 per cent firms falling prey to phishing.

Across the country, about 57 per cent of the total organisations interviewed admitted to receiving phishing lures in the recent past.

Medium-sized companies, and not the larger ones, are now the targets for phishing attacks, according to Mr Singh.

About 44 per cent of the Websense CIO survey's respondents were from IT/ ITES and BFSI segment, while 23 per cent of organisations were in manufacturing.

Other verticals covered by the survey included infrastructure, telecom, pharmaceutical, media & entertainment and aviation.

While the survey covered mostly medium and large companies (from 101 to over 5,000 PC users organisations), smaller ones, with under 100 PC users per company, constituted 14 per cent of the respondents.

Organisations are also beginning to worry about threats due to increasing use of mobile computing devices for work.

Again, medium-sized organisations (with 101-1,000 PC users) seem more worried about security issues from mobile devices than large organisations.

More than 50 per cent of the respondents in Chennai and Mumbai suggested that they are facing security risks from mobile computing options.