Phishing fraudsters shifted attention to e-commerce and online gaming sites in the third quarter of 2010 but credit unions continued to draw their attention, too.
That's according to the third-quarter 2010 "Phishing Trends Report" from Internet Identity, an online security firm based in Tacoma, Wash., whose client list includes financial institutions, e-commerce companies and Internet service providers.
According to IID, phishing attacks through impersonating e-commerce and gaming sites-excluding eBay-increased more than 300% worldwide from July to September, compared with the year-ago period.
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That trend is expected to continue through the holiday period.
"As the world moves into the highly active online shopping season, we expect to see increases worldwide in e-commerce attacks. In addition, with the online gaming industry generating over $15 billion annually and growing rapidly, it is the kind of target that is hard for criminals to resist," said Rod Rasmussen, IID's chief technology officer.
Meanwhile, the number of credit unions attacked decreased in the third quarter but individual credit unions were hit with more-concentrated phishing forays, IID said.
For instance, one targeted CU experienced 10 fraud domain attacks from July 2-4 and was hit again on Aug. 12 with five more attacks. "The emerging pattern reveals criminals attacking a particular CU until the credit union is able to squelch the attack. This marks a change from the recent history of hit-and-run type attacks," the IID report said.
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