Phishing Activity Trends
Report for the Month of January, 2008
Summarization of January Report Findings► The number of unique keylogger crimeware variants detected in January reached a new high of 364, an increase of
1.4% from the previous high in October, 2007. ► In the month of January, the number of websites that were hosting
keylogging crimeware systems rose by over 1,100, reaching 3,362, the second highest number recorded in thepreceeding 12 months. ► The total number of unique phishing reports submitted to APWG in January 2008 was29,284, an increase of over 3,600 reports from the previous month. ► The number of brands targeted by phishers inJanuary reported a drop of more than 10 brands to 131. ► The number of unique phishing websites detected by
APWG was 20,305 in January 2008, a decrease of over 5,000 from the month of December 2007.► In January, theUnited States moved back to being the top hosting country for password-stealing malicious code with 43.39%, after
being eclipsed by China in December. ► In January, APWG saw the United States remain the top of country hosting
phishing websites with 37.25% of all such websites.

Phishing Defined and Report Scope
Phishing is a form of online identity theft that employs both social engineering and technical subterfuge to steal
consumers' personal identity data and financial account credentials. Social-engineering schemes use 'spoofed' emails to lead consumers to counterfeit websites designed to trick recipients into divulging financial data such asaccount usernames and passwords. Hijacking brand names of banks, e-retailers and credit card companies, phishers
often convince recipients to respond. Technical subterfuge schemes plant crimeware onto PCs to steal credentials
directly, often using key logging systems to intercept consumers online account user names and passwords, and tocorrupt local and remote navigational infrastructures to misdirect consumers to counterfeit websites and to authentic
websites through phisher-controlled proxies that can be used to monitor and intercept consumers’ keystrokes.
The monthly Phishing Activity Trends Report analyzes phishing attacks reported to the APWG via its member
companies, Global Research Partners, the organization’s website at http://www.antiphishing.org and email
submissions to reportphishing@antiphishing.org. The APWG phishing attack repository is the Internet’s mostcomprehensive archive of email fraud and phishing activity. The APWG additionally measures the evolution,proliferation and propagation of crimeware drawing from the independent research of our member companies. In thesecond half of this report are tabulations of crimeware statistics and reportage on specific criminal software detectedby our member researchers.

Statistical Highlights for January 2008
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Number of unique phishing reports received in January:
Number of unique phishing sites received in January:
Number of brands hijacked by phishing campaigns in January:
Number of brands comprising the top 80% of phishing campaigns in January:
Country hosting the most phishing websites in January:
Contain some form of target name in URL:
No hostname; just IP address:
Percentage of sites not using port 80:
Average time online for site:
Longest time online for site:

29284
20305
131
15United States
28.3 %
5.5%.81 %3.1 days
31 days

APWG
http://www.antiphishing.org ● info@antiphishing.org

Methodology
APWG is continuing to refine and develop our tracking and reporting methodology. We have re-instated the tracking
and reporting of unique phishing reports (email campaigns) in addition to unique phishing sites. An email campaign isa unique email sent out to multiple users, directing them to a specific phishing web site, (multiple campaigns may
point to the same web site). APWG counts unique phishing report emails as those in a given month with the same
subject line in the email.
APWG also tracks the number of unique phishing websites. This is now determined by unique base URLs of thephishing sites.
APWG is also tracking crimeware instances (unique software applications as determined by MD5 hash of thecrimeware sample) as well as unique sties that are distributing crimeware (typically via browser drive-by exploits).

Phishing Email Reports and Phishing Site Trends for January 2008
The total number of unique phishing reports submitted to APWG in January 2008 was 29,284, an increase of over
3,600 reports from the previous month. This is a count of unique phishing email reports received by the APWG fromthe public, its members and its research partners.

The Phishing Attack Trends Report is published monthly by the APWG, an industry and law enforcement association focusedon eliminating the identity theft and fraud that result from the growing problem of phishing, crimeware and email spoofing. For
further information, please contact APWG Deputy Secretary General Foy Shiver at 404.434.7282. Data and analyses for thePhishing Attack Trends Report has been donated by the following companies:APWG
http://www.antiphishing.org ● info@antiphishing.org

The number of unique phishing websites detected by APWG was 20,305 in January 2008, a decrease of over 5,000
from the month of December 2007.

Top Used Ports Hosting Phishing Data Collection Servers in January 2008
January saw acontinuation of HTTP
port 80 being the mostpopular port used at
99.23% of all phishingsites reported.

APWG
http://www.antiphishing.org ● info@antiphishing.org

April 2007 - January 2008 Brand-Domain Pairs Measurement
The following chart combines statistics based on brands phished, unique domains, unique domain/brand pairs andunique URLs. Brand/domain pairs count the unique instances of a domain being used to target a specific brand.
Example: if several URLs targeting a brand - but are hosted on the same domain - this brand/domain pair would becounted as one instead of several. Forensic utility: If the number of unique URLs is greater than the number ofbrand/domain pairs, it indicates many URLs are being hosted on the same domain to target the same brand. Knowing
how many URLs occur with each domain indicates the approximate number of attacking domains a brandholding
victim needs to locate and neutralize. Since Phishing-prevention technologies (like browser and email blocking)require the full URL, it is useful to understand the general number of unique URLs that occur per domain.

April

May

June

July

August

Sept.

Oct.

Nov.

Dec.

Jan.

Unique URLs

55643

37438

31709

30999

32079

28015

34226

23630

25328

20305

Unique Domains

6637

5967

6006

6005

5023

5058

5472

5551

4973

5490

Unique Brand-Domain Pairs

7622

7092

7359

7538

6580

6465

6704

6936

6222

6682

Unique Brands

174

149

146

126

129

92

120

178

144

131

URLs per Brand

319.79251.26217.18246.02248.67304.51285.22132.76175.89155

APWG
http://www.antiphishing.org ● info@antiphishing.org

Brands & Legitimate Entities Hijacked By Email Phishing Attacks in Jan. 2008
Number ofReported Brands
January reported a decrease of
more than 10 brands to 131.

Most Targeted Industry Sectors in January 2008
Financial Services
continue to be the mosttargeted industry sector
at 92.4% of all attacks
recorded in the month ofJanuary.

APWG
http://www.antiphishing.org ● info@antiphishing.org

Web Phishing Attack Trends in January 2008
Countries Hosting Phishing Sites
In January, Websense Security Labs saw the United States remain the top of country hosting phishing sites with37.25%. The rest of the top 10 breakdown is as follows: Russia Federation 11.66%, China 10.3%, Germany 5.64%,Romania 5.09%, Republic of Korea 3.77%, France 3.28%, Canada 1.94%, United Kingdom 1.92% and Italy at 1.59%.

PROJECT: Crimeware
Crimeware Taxonomy & Samples According to Classification in January 2008
PROJECT: Crimeware categorizes crimeware attacks as follows, though the taxonomy will grow as variations inattack code are spawned:

Phishing-based Trojans - Keyloggers
Definition: Crimeware code which is designed with the intent of collecting information on the end-user in order tosteal those users' credentials. Unlike most generic keyloggers, phishing-based keyloggers have tracking components
which attempt to monitor specific actions (and specific organizations, most importantly financial institutions and online
retailers and ecommerce merchants) in order to target specific information, the most common are; access to financial
based websites, ecommerce sites, and web-based mail sites.

APWG
http://www.antiphishing.org ● info@antiphishing.org

Phishing-based Trojans – Keyloggers, Unique Variants in January

Phishing-based Trojans – Keyloggers, Unique Websites Hosting Keyloggers in January

APWG
http://www.antiphishing.org ● info@antiphishing.org

Phishing-based Trojans – Redirectors
Definition: Crimeware code which is designed with the intent of redirecting end-users network traffic to a location
where it was not intended to go to. This includes crimeware that changes hosts files and other DNS specificinformation, crimeware browser-helper objects that redirect users to fraudulent sites, and crimeware that may install anetwork level driver or filter to redirect users to fraudulent locations. All of these must be installed with the intention ofcompromising information which could lead to identify theft or other credentials being taken with criminal intent.
Along with phishing-based keyloggers we are seeing high increases in traffic redirectors. In particular the highest
volume is in malicious code which simply modifies your DNS server settings or your hosts file to redirect either somespecific DNS lookups or all DNS lookups to a fraudulent DNS server. The fraudulent server replies with “good”
answers for most domains, however when they want to direct you to a fraudulent one, they simply modify their nameserver responses. This is particularly effective because the attackers can redirect any of the users requests at any
time and the end-users have very little indication that this is happening as they could be typing in the address on theirown and not following an email or Instant Messaging lure.

Phishing-based Trojans & Downloader’s Hosting Countries (by IP address) in January
The chart below represents a breakdown of the websites which were classified during January as hosting malicious
code in the form of either a phishing-based keylogger or a Trojan downloader which downloads a keylogger.
In January, the United States moved back to the top of the list with 43.39%, after being eclipsed by China inDecember.
The rest of the breakdown was as follows; China 16.95%, France 6.89%, UK 5.92%, Republic of Korea 5.84%,
Russian Federation 4.46%, Spain 3.81%, Poland 3.41%, Romania 3.24%, Germany 3.16%.

APWG
http://www.antiphishing.org ● info@antiphishing.org

Phishing Research Contributors

dMarkMonitor

PandaLabs

Websense Security Labs

MarkMonitor is the global leader
in delivering comprehensive
online corporate identity
protection services, with a focus
on making the Internet safe foronline transactions.

PandaLabs is an international
network of research andtechnical support centersdevoted to protecting users
against malware.

Websense Security Labs mission
is to discover, investigate, andreport on advanced internet
threats to protect employee
computing environments.

For media inquiries please contact APWG Deputy Secretary General Foy Shiver at 404.434.7282 or Cas Purdy at858.320.9493 or cpurdy@websense.com or Te Smith at 831.818.1267 or Te.Smith@markmonitor.com.

About the APWG
The APWG, founded as the Anti-Phishing Working Group in 2003, is an industry association focused on eliminating
the identity theft and fraud that result from the growing problem of phishing and email spoofing. The organization
provides a forum to discuss phishing issues, define the scope of the phishing problem in terms of hard and soft costs
and consequences, and to share information and best practices for eliminating the problem. Where appropriate, theAPWG will also look to share this information with law enforcement.
Membership is open to qualified financial institutions, online retailers, ISPs, the law enforcement community, andsolutions providers. There are more than 1700 companies and government agencies participating in the APWG andmore than 3000 members. Note that because phishing attacks and email fraud are sensitive subjects for manyorganizations that do business online, the APWG has a policy of maintaining the confidentiality of member
organizations.
The website of the APWG is http://www.antiphishing.org. It serves as a public and industry resource for information
about the problem of phishing and email fraud, including identification and promotion of pragmatic technical solutions
that can provide immediate protection and benefits against phishing attacks.
The APWG, a 501c6 tax-exempted corporation, was founded by Tumbleweed Communications and a number ofmember banks, financial services institutions, and e-commerce providers. It held its first meeting in November 2003 in
San Francisco and in June 2004 was incorporated as an independent corporation controlled by its steering committee,
its board of directors and its executives.

APWG
http://www.antiphishing.org ● info@antiphishing.org