Recent massive data breaches could lead to increased spearphishing attacks in coming months, according to an Internetsecurity specialist.

Spear phishing is the personalized version of phishing. Cyberfraudsters target a specific individual through emails aimed atluring that person, typically a C-level executive or otherhigh-level employee with access to large amounts of funds, intoproviding access online.

In its FirstQuarter eCrime Trends Report, Internet Identity of Tacoma,Wash., said its analysis shows phishing scams up 12% compared tothe first quarter of 2010 overall. And with millions of emailaddresses and other inside information apparently harvested byattackers in the Sony PlayStation Network and Epsilon breaches, targeted attackscould be rising, the company said.

“The worry is that with all of this specific data, cybercriminals have all they need to convince people to share theirhighly valuable personal information. Organizationsmust ensure they are taking every measure to stop theseattacks including blocking access to phishing sites, and commandand control domains for malware that exfiltrates data. This shouldbe done in email filtering, firewalls, and at their domain namesystem resolvers,” said IID President/Chief Technology Officer RodRasmussen.

Rasmussen said the quarterly data also show that rogue mobileapplications “utilizing the likeness of banks were downloadedhundreds of thousands of times.”