According to the British security firm Sophos, nearly two-thirds of users in enterprises experience phishing emails daily, with 22% of them receiving an average of up to five emails.
The Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) also recorded 15,244 reports of online scams in December 2005, compared to just 8,829 cases a year earlier. In that same month, APWG detected 7,200 phishing sites associated with 121 different scam groups.
The average lifespan of such sites is only about 5.3 days, with the most persistent website lasting up to one month. More than one-third of phishing sites have servers located in the United States, followed by South Korea and China.
“Organizations and businesses are increasingly focused on protecting their own websites, but they cannot escape the risk of their brands and reputations being exploited,” said David Jevans, Chairman of APWG.
Last week, concerns about phishing were once again highlighted when Visa Asia Pacific announced that they had discovered and shut down 20 websites impersonating their organization.
