India is high up on the list of countries in the world where companies are most targeted by phishing attacks, according to a study released by RSA Security. According to the RSA Quarterly Fraud Report Q1 2018, India shares the third place with the Canada as a top country by attacked companies. The report says that the US hosted largest number of phishing attacks in the 1st quarter of 2018, followed by Russia and India.
Phishing accounted for 48 percent of all cyber-attacks observed by RSA and was among the top three threats reported by consumers to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) last year, according to their 2017 Internet Crime Report. Apart from becoming more sophisticated, there has been an evolution in the mode of delivery.
According to the report, one of the more recent forms of phishing that has continued to rise is known as smishing, or SMS phishing, which are messages sent through a consumer’s mobile phone (“click here to take a survey and win a $100 gift card” messages). Consumers should be mindful when responding to any and all unsolicited emails, texts, or phone calls they receive purporting to be from a legitimate organization.
The RSA Quarterly Fraud Report Q1 2018 found that there were 24581 phishing attacks worldwide in the 1st quarter of 2018, compared to 29347 recorded in the fourth quarter of 2017.
Social media: Greener Pastures for the fraudsters
The report says that mobile is the preferred method for cashing out, fraudsters are increasingly migrating to social media to communicate, trade information, advertise their services, and even create virtual storefronts to sell stolen data.
When organizations think of social media threats, the cybercrime trade occurring in plain sight is probably not the first thing that comes to mind. Typically, they might think of how employees are using it or the misuse of their brand on these platforms. However, there is a thriving fraud business happening on most major social media sites that is going completely unnoticed. Organizations need to be monitoring social media for fraud threats targeting their business, or for those who lack the resources, consider contracting with a vendor who specializes in cyber intelligence services.
RSA Quarterly Fraud Report Q1 2018: Key Highlights
- Phishing accounted for 48 percent of all cyber attacks observed by RSA. Canada, the United States, India and Brazil were the countries most targeted by phishing.
- Financial malware accounted for one out of every four fraud attacks.
- Consumer transactions and fraud continue to grow in the mobile channel. In the first quarter, 55 percent of transactions originated in the mobile channel and 65 percent of fraud transactions used a mobile application or browser. Over the course of 2017, fraud by mobile app increased 50 percent.
- The average value of a fraudulent transaction was up to 152 percent higher than a genuine one.
- More than 80 percent of observed fraudulent e-commerce transactions originated from a new device.
