Since February of this year, RSA’s Anti-Fraud Command Center has seen a marked uptick in phishing attacks targeting the largest nationwide banks. This was one of the more intriguing findings from the recent July 2010 RSA Online Fraud Report.
From June 2009 through February 2010, larger financial institutions were targeted in the 19–30% range, depending on the month. The latest trend, however, shows that these large nationwide banks are receiving almost two-thirds of all phishing attempts in the finance sector, topping out at 68% in June.
Infosecurity notes that the proportion of attacks targeting larger bank brands seems to come directly from the share once held by smaller regional banks. This may be a result of a recovering economy and banking sector, as scammers shift their focus from smaller banks that were thought to be on more sound footing during the recent financial crisis.
The report also revealed a 16% drop in total phishing attacks in June compared with the previous month. RSA believes one of the contributors was the dearth of activity from the Rock Phish gang (aka, Avalanche), which the company said has nearly halted its phishing activity in favor of launching malware attacks.