http://afritechnet..ae/2015/06/phishing-growing-business.html

People often ask why so many young men are lured into the world of Yahoo boys. The reality is that the money is good and the work is straightforward. Nor is 419 (better known elsewhere as 'phishing') in any way particular to Nigeria, it's a global phenomenon as a result of the riches on offer.

Phishing remains a bustling industry on the Web, according to a new report from the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG). According to the report, there were at least 123,972 unique phishing attacks worldwide during the final half of last year, and those attacks occurred on 95,321 unique domain names.

Major findings from the report include:

1. New companies are constantly being targeted by phishers. Some phishers are
attacking targets where consumers may least expect it.

2. The ten companies that are targeted most often by phishers are attacked
constantly, sometimes more than 1,000 times per month. Together the top ten
targets suffered more than three-quarters of all the phishing attacks observed
worldwide.

3. The number of domain names used for phishing reached an all-time high.

4. Phishing in the new top-level domains started slowly. We expect to see phishing
levels in them rise as time goes on.

5. Chinese phishers were responsible for 85% of the domain names that were
registered for phishing. These phishers started using .CN domains more frequently.

6. More than 16 percent of the world's malicious registrations were made in the .TK, .CF, .GA and .ML registries, according to the report.

7. Phishing attacks were not mitigated as quickly. The median uptime of phishing
attacks increased to 10 hours 6 minutes — up from 8 hours and 42 minutes in
1H2014. This means that phishing attacks were not being shut down as efficiently in the critical first hours, when most victims fall prey.


APWG have called for service providers to be more responsible and clamp down the problem as it currently stands before it morphs into something greater.