Social sites emerge top targets for phishing attacks
26 Dec 2012
Social networking sites have become the top targets for cyber criminals, with phishing attacks on these sites reportedly registering an increase of 13 percentage points to 30 per cent in November over the previous month.
Phishing involves using similar-looking websites and emails, confusing users into revealing personal information. This information is sold by the perpetrators in the cyber underworld.
Online stores, with a share of 13 per cent, fell to third place this month from the first place. The share of phishing attacks targeting financial and e-payment organisations decreased by 3 percentage points in November, but this category remains firmly in second place with a 20 per cent share in the overall attacks.
''Search engines continue to be targeted less frequently (down 5.4 percentage points) and fell to the fourth position from the third. The search engines most frequently targeted by phishers were Google and Yahoo,'' Tatyana Shcherbakova, a spam analyst at internet security solutions firm Kaspersky Lab, said.
''As expected, Christmas-themed spam has surged. In December, advertisements for various goods and services related to the holidays will continue to increase, while the amount of image spam will also be on the rise,'' she said.
The share of spam in mail traffic fell sharply in November to 62.9 per cent, a decrease of over five percentage points over October's figure.
