China responsible for phishing rise

Phishers try to profit from Christmas season

There has been a threefold increase in global phishing emails in the last week, according to security vendor Marshal's Threat Research and Content Engineering (Trace) team.

The significant increase is primarily due to a massive jump in phishing messages being sent from South Korea and China, according to the Trace, Marshal's monitoring arm.

Bradley Anstis, director of product management at Marshal, said: 'Like spam levels, which have almost doubled in the past month, the current spike in phishing emails is in part being driven by the Christmas season.'

'Scammers and spammers are ramping up their efforts because they are aware that there a more consumers shopping online, looking for gift ideas and receiving e-cards,' he said.

Phishing emails increased from 0.4 per cent of total spam on 24 November to now represent 2.2 per cent of total spam. This signifies the highest level of phishing emails since July 2006, according to Trace. The spike represents a tripling of the average phishing email rates over the last six months.

China is now the biggest generator of phishing emails in the world, jumping from 10th position last week.

Major targets for phishing emails in the past week include Fifth Third Bank, National Australia Bank and Bendigo Bank, according to Trace.

In addition to the rise in phishing, the Trace reported that Christmas spam rates have exploded over November. At the end of October there was almost zero Christmas Spam distributed, but it now represents 10.9 per cent of spam overall.

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