Phishing Activity Trends
Report for the Month of January, 2007
Summarization of January Report Findings► The number of phishing spoof sites reached an all time high of 29,930 unique phishing URLs reported in January,
an increase of more than 25 percent from December and nearly 5 percent from the previous high in June, 2006.
► APWG saw a total of 135 brands being hijacked in January with numerous non-traditional websites spoofed suchas social network portals and gambling sites. ► APWG notes that more brokerage company websites and many moreInternational banks’ brands were spoofed and hijacked in January. ► The number of crimeware variants reached an
all time high in January of 345, up from 340 in December, 2006, rising 1.5% from that month, which was the previous
highpoint for keylogging crimeware variants detected in a single month.

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 Anti-Phishing Working Group(APWG) via its member companies, Global Research Partners, the organization’s website at
http://www.antiphishing.org and email submission to reportphishing@antiphishing.org. The APWG phishing attack
repository is the Internet’s most comprehensive archive of email fraud and phishing activity. The APWG additionallymeasures the evolution, proliferation and propagation of crimeware drawing from the independent research of ourmember companies. In the second half of this report are tabulations of crimeware statistics and reportage on specificcriminal software detected by our member researchers.

Statistical Highlights for January 2007•
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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:

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

29930
27221
135
10United States
24.5 %
18 %3.0 %4 days30 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).

Phishing Email Reports and Phishing Site Trends for January 2007
The total number of unique phishing reports submitted to APWG in January 2007 was 29,930 – the highest recorded
number by the APWG. This is a count of unique phishing email reports received by the APWG from the public, its
member organizations and its research partners.

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 furtherinformation, contact APWG Secretary General Peter Cassidy at 617.669.1123. Data and Analysis for the Phishing AttackTrends Report has been donated by the following companies:

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

The number of unique phishing websites detected by APWG was 27,221 in January 2007.

New Phishing Sites by Month Jan. '06 - Jan. '07
37444 37439
36000
32000
28000

24565

28531 27221

24000
20000
16000
12000

9715 9103 9666

11121 11976 10047

14191
10091

8000
4000
0January

MarchMay

July

September

NovemberJanuary

Top Used Ports Hosting Phishing Data Collection Servers in January 2007
January saw a continuation ofa trend of HTTP port 80 being
the most popular port used at
97.1% of all phishing sites
reported.

Port 84(1.08%)

Port 80(97.1%)

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

Port 82(.88%)
Port 81(.28%)

6 other ports<.2% (66%)

Brands & Legitimate Entities Hijacked By Email Phishing Attacks in January 2007
Number ofReported Brands
January 2007 showed thenumber of brands hijacked
remaining steady to previousmonths. Of note, numerous
non-traditional websites
spoofed such as social
networking portals andgambling sites were hijacked.

Hijacked Brands by MonthJan. '06 - Jan '07

137 130

160

105
120 101
80

70

176

154 148

92117

120

146 135

40uaryM
archAprilM
ay
JuneJulAu y
S e gupt stemb
O erct
N obeovrembDec eremb
Ja ernu
arybr
Fe

Janua
ry

0

Most Targeted Industry Sectors in January 2007
Financial Services continue to be the mosttargeted industry sector at 88.9% of all
attacks in the month of January.

Retail (2.2%)
ISP (4.4%)

In addition, more brokerages websites andmany more International banks and brands
were spoofed and hijacked.

Miscellaneous(4.4%)

FinancialServices(88.9%)

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

Web Phishing Attack Trends in January 2007
Countries Hosting Phishing Sites
In January, Websense® Security Labs™ saw a continuation of the top three countries hosing phishing websites. TheUnited States remains the on the top of the list with 24.27%. The rest of the top 10 breakdown is as follows:
China 17.23%, Republic of Korea 11%, Canada 4.05%, Germany 3.64% Japan 2.41%, France 2.33% Russia 2.15%,
Brazil 1.9%, United Kingdom 1.67%.

Top 10 Phishing Sites Hosting Countries
Republic of Korea
CanadaGermanyJapanFranceChinaRussia
BrazilUnited Kingdom

United States

PROJECT: Crimeware
Crimeware Taxonomy & Samples According to Classification in January 2007
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.

Anti-Phishing Working Group
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

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

PROJECT Crimeware Field Sighting: Brazilian and Russian eGangs Collaborating
In January, Websense Security Labs discovered that Brazilian-based malicious code authors were utilizing a popular
web exploit kit, which originated in Russia. This combination of the groups working together is relevant because
previously we have not seen such collaboration. The Web Attacker toolkit allowed attackers to place code on theirwebsite to infect users when the site is visited. This toolkit is the most popular exploit kit on the web today.
Previously, Brazilian attacks mostly used deception as a means to dupe users into running their code. Theseattacks provide the largest volume of unique samples that we see on daily basis.
Of the sample attacks that we received, one is a fake news story about a robbery that claims to have a large reward
for the capture of the criminal. Another attack is contained in an email asking you to view some photos.
In both examples, the attackers used email as the lure to attract visitors to their sites. Both sites contained live codethat installed and downloaded information stealing malicious code, if the visitor's PC was not fully patched.
Attack example screenshot 1

Attack example screenshot 2

Anti-Phishing Working Group
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.
The United States is the top geographic location with 47%.
The rest of the breakdown was as follows; China 22%, France 5%, Russia 3%, Netherlands 2%, Korea 2%, Brazil 1%,
Italy 1%, Spain 1%, United Kingdom 1%.

Top 10 Phishing Based Keylogger and Trojan
Downloaders by Hosting CountryChinaFranceRussiaNetherlands
Korea
BrazilItalySpainUnited KingdomUnited 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 Internet
threats to protect employee
computing environments.

For media inquiries please contact Peter Cassidy, APWG Secretary General at 617.669.1123 or
pcassidy@antiphishing.org and Cas Purdy at 858.320.9493 or <cpurdy@websense.com>.

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 1600 companies and government agencies participating in the APWG andmore than 2600 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, 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 inSan 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