Phishing gangs are apparently casting a wider net.
The Anti-Phishing Working Group said in its Q1 2010 Trends Report released last week that attacks focused on online retail, auction and financial services decreased in the first quarter of 2010 but that attacks on payment services increased more than 10% during that time.
And attacks on social networking, online classifieds and gaming increased from 13% of all phishing attacks to 18%, an increase of more than 37% in one quarter, the APWG said.
The APWG said its data show unique phishing reports reaching 30,577 in March, down 25% from the record high of 40,621 in August 2009, and brands attacked totaling 298 in March, compared with last October's all-time high of 356.
The organization also said that 53% of all computers monitored in its report were infected with some kind of malware. APWG said the report combines its own data with APWG members MarkMonitor, Websense, Panda Security, Afilias and Internet Identity.
The APWG is a global coalition of more than 1,800 industry, law enforcement and other government and non-governmental organizations formed in 2003 to fight identity theft and fraud resulting from phishing, e-mail spoofing and crimeware.
