Phishing Activity Trends Report

January, 2006

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 Anti-Phishing Working Group(APWG) via the organization’s website at http://www.antiphishing.org or email submission toreportphishing@antiphishing.org. The APWG phishing attack repository is the Internet’s most comprehensive archiveof email fraud and phishing activity. The APWG additionally measures the evolution, proliferation and propagation ofcrimeware drawing from the independent research of our member companies. In the second half of this report are
tabulations of crimeware statistics and reportage on specific criminal software detected by our member researchers.

Highlights
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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:

17,8779715
101
6United States
45 %30 %8%
5.0 days
31 days

Methodology
APWG is continuing to refine and develop our tracking and reporting methodology. We have recently re-instated thetracking and reporting of unique phishing reports (email campaigns) in addition to unique phishing sites. An email
campaign is a unique email sent out to multiple users, directing them to a specific phishing web site, (multiplecampaigns may point to the same web site). APWG counts unique phishing report emails as those in a given monthwith 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).
The Phishing Attack Trends Report is published monthly by the Anti-Phishing Working Group, an industry association focusedon eliminating the identity theft and fraud that result from the growing problem of phishing and email spoofing. For further
information, please contact Ronnie Manning at rmanning@websense.com or 858.320.9274 or APWG Secretary General Peter
Cassidy at 617.669.1123. Analysis for the Phishing Attack Trends Report has been donated by the following companies:

The next North American meeting of the APWG will be on April 18, 2006 in Chicago, IL.
Check the APWG website for more information at www.antiphishing.org

Anti-Phishing Working Group
http://www.antiphishing.org ● info@antiphishing.org

Phishing Email Reports And Phishing Site Trends
The total number of unique phishing reports submitted to APWG in January 2006 was 17,877 – the most reports everrecorded. This is a count of unique phishing email reports.

The number of unique phishing websites detected by APWG was 9715 in January 2006, a huge increase in unique
phishing sites from the previous two months.

New Phishing Sites by Month January '05 - January '06
9715

10000
9000
8000

7197

7000
6000

4280 4564

5000
4000
3000

2560

5259 5242

4367 4630

2625 2870 2854 3326

2000
1000
0January

MarchMay

July

SeptemberAnti-Phishing Working Group
http://www.antiphishing.org ● info@antiphishing.org

NovemberJanuary

Top Used Ports Hosting Phishing Data Collection Servers
Port 680(1.88%)

November saw a continuation of a trend ofHTTP port 80 being the most popular port
used at 92.67% of all phishing sites reported.

Port 82 (1.62%)
7 other ports< 1% (3.8%)

Port 80(92.67%)

Brands and Legitimate Entities Hijacked By Email Phishing Attacks
Number of Reported Brands
January 2006 showed fewer
brands being spoofed thanDecember 2005, which was arecord month.

Hijacked Brands by Month
January '05 - January '06
160

107

120
80

64

69 79 79

106
74 71

84

121
96 93

101

40

AprilMayJuneJu
A u lySe gu
pt stemb
O er
cto
No beve r
De mb
ce e rmb
Ja e rnu
ary

Janu
Fe a rybruar
M yarch0

Anti-Phishing Working Group
http://www.antiphishing.org ● info@antiphishing.org

Most Targeted Industry Sectors
Financial Services continue to be the mosttargeted industry sector, growing to 92% of all
attacks in the month of January.

Retail (2%)
ISP (5%)
Miscellaneous(1%)

FinancialServices (92%)

Web Phishing Attack Trends
Countries Hosting Phishing Sites
In January, Websense® Security Labs™ saw a continuation of the top three countries hosing phishing websites. The
United States remains the on the top of the list with 36.57%. The rest of the top 10 breakdown is as follows: Republicof Korea 7.7%, China 8.98%, Germany 3.75%, Japan 2.8%, China 2.68%, France 2.37%, United Kingdom 2.1%,
Canada 2.06%, Brazil 1.62%.

Top 10 Phishing Sites Hosting Countries
ChinaGermany
United Kingdo mRepublic o f Ko rea
JapanTaiwan
Ro mania
FranceCanadaUnited States

Anti-Phishing Working Group
http://www.antiphishing.org ● info@antiphishing.org

PROJECT: Crimeware
Crimeware Taxonomy & Samples According to Classification in January
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.

Phishing-based Trojans – Keyloggers, Unique Variants

Password Stealing Malicious CodeUnique Applications
200

154

174

168

150
100

142

154

165

180

184

79

77

50

Se
t
ptem
ber
O
ctoberNovem
ber
December
Janu
aryAu
gus

July

Ju
neay
M

April0

Phishing-based Trojans reached an all time high in January with 184 unique applications detected
and recorded by APWG researchers.

Anti-Phishing Working Group
http://www.antiphishing.org ● info@antiphishing.org

Phishing-based Trojans – Keyloggers, Unique Websites Hosting Keyloggers

Password Stealing Malicious Code URLs
2500
1912

2000
1500
918

1000
260

500

495

958

965

863

10441100526gustSe
pt
em
ber
O
ctober
Novem
beDr
ecem
ber
Janu
aryAu

JulyJuneM
ayApril0

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.

Anti-Phishing Working Group
http://www.antiphishing.org ● info@antiphishing.org

Phishing-based Trojans & Downloader’s Hosting Countries (by IP address)
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.
The United States is still the top geographic location with 35.74%
The rest of the breakdown was as follows; Spain 17.82%, Brazil 7.44%, Russia 6.95%, Germany 4.3%, China 4.11%,
UK 3.52%, Korea 2.35%, Italy 1.86%, Argentina 1.27%

Top 10 Phishing Based Keylogger and Trojan
Downloaders by Hosting Country
B razilRussiaGermanySpainChinaUKKo reaItalyArgentina

United States

Anti-Phishing Working Group
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 Internetthreats to protect employee
computing environments.

For media inquiries please contact Ronnie Manning at rmanning@websense.com or 858.320.9274 or Peter Cassidy,
APWG Secretary General at 617.669.1123.

About the Anti-Phishing Working GroupThe Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) is an industry association focused on eliminating the identity theft and fraudthat result from the growing problem of phishing and email spoofing. The organization provides a forum to discussphishing issues, define the scope of the phishing problem in terms of hard and soft costs, and share information andbest practices for eliminating the problem. Where appropriate, the APWG will also look to share this information withlaw enforcement.
Membership is open to qualified financial institutions, online retailers, ISPs, the law enforcement community, andsolutions providers. There are more than 1500 companies and government agencies participating in the APWG andmore than 2300 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 Anti-Phishing Working Group 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 ofpragmatic technical solutions that can provide immediate protection and benefits against phishing attacks. The
analysis, forensics, and archival of phishing attacks to the website are currently powered by Tumbleweed
Communications' Message Protection Lab.
The APWG was founded by Tumbleweed Communications and a number of member 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 and its executives.

Anti-Phishing Working Group
http://www.antiphishing.org ● info@antiphishing.org