{"id":4337,"date":"2013-12-27T10:00:11","date_gmt":"2013-12-27T15:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.nccomputertech.com\/?p=4337"},"modified":"2013-12-27T10:00:11","modified_gmt":"2013-12-27T15:00:11","slug":"less-phishing-but-better-targeting-in-2013-report-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/2013\/12\/27\/less-phishing-but-better-targeting-in-2013-report-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Less phishing, but better targeting in 2013, report says"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Criminals are sending markedly fewer phishing emails than a year ago, but they are now being more skillfully targeted, an end-of-year report by security firm Websense has found.<\/p>\n

According to Websense, phishing volumes have continued their journey downwards of recent years, falling to 0.5 percent of all email in 2013 from 1.12 percent the year before.<\/p>\n

Although good news on the face of it, when it comes to any measurement of security there is always a rub and in this case it is the rise of plausible subject lines capable of tricking users into opening attachments or links.<\/p>\n

The top ones experienced by Websense (which sells email filtering gateways) were<\/p>\n

Invitation to connect on LinkedIn<\/p>\n

Mail delivery failed; returning message to sender<\/p>\n

Dear customer<\/p>\n

Comunicazione importante<\/p>\n

Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender<\/p>\n

As the criminals know, these subject lines are difficult to filter using subject lines alone because that would risk trapping legitimate messages. If sent from legitimate domains (for example, Gmail) they are also harder to block using reputation technology.<\/p>\n

And years on from its appearance, the uncomfortable fact is that phishing still works as long as it is sufficiently targeted or appears to come from a legitimate individual as numerous stories about Advanced Persistent Threat (APTs) launched using the medium underline.<\/p>\n

\u201dCybercriminals aren\u2019t simply throwing millions of emails over the fence. They are instead targeting their attack strategies with sophisticated techniques and integrating social engineering tactics. Scammers use social networks to conduct their recon and research their prey,\u201d Websense said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The firm also published some data on the countries most often used to host phishing URLs although it\u2019s not clear that this is particularly significant. China was the top source of phishing email, followed by the U.S., Germany, the U.K., Canada, Russia, France, Hong Kong, The Netherlands, and Brazil.<\/p>\n

This most likely reflects the availability of compromised hosts rather than reflecting badly on those countries in particular.<\/p>\n

Not all phishing requires email to carry its message; a recent study noted the still-popular tendency to register typo domains (domains that are close misspellings of familiar brands), using them to host phishing sites. These are usually found inadvertently from the address bar.<\/p>\n

What doesn\u2019t seem to be in doubt is that criminals are sending out fewer phishing emails. An analysis by the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) recorded a significant drop in the number of campaigns detected during 2013. This was probably because criminals were using their servers for other activities, such as DDoS attacks.<\/p>\n

via Less phishing, but better targeting in 2013, report says | PCWorld<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Criminals are sending markedly fewer phishing emails than a year ago, but they are now being more skillfully targeted, an 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