The phishing threat in numbers

Figure 1: Attacks by industry, 1H2014 – excluding shared virtual server attacks

The Anti-phishing Working Group’s (APWG) Global Phishing Survey 1H2014: Trends and Domain Name Use seeks to understand trends and their significance by quantifying the scope of the global phishing problem. The results provide brand owners with insight into phishing trends and can help to inform enforcement strategies.

The latest findings include the following:

• Apple was the world’s most-phished brand in the first six months of the year (21,951 attacks), followed by PayPal (17,811) and Taobao.com (16,418).
• The introduction of new top-level domains has not had an immediate major impact on phishing (while phishing occurred in 227 top-level domains, 90% of malicious domain registrations were located in just five – ‘.com’, ‘.tk’, ‘.pw’, ‘.cf’ and ‘.net’); but this is expected to change as the market becomes more competitive.
• Chinese phishers were responsible for 85% of the domain names that were registered for phishing.
• Malicious domain and sub-domain registrations continue at historically high levels.
• The brands targeted by phishing targets were diverse, with many new targets, indicating that e-criminals are looking for new opportunities in new places.

Figure 2: Phishing attacks, domains 2H2010-1H2014

Figure 3: All phishing attacks by TLD, 1H2014