Indian companies lost around USD 53 million (about Rs. 328 crore) due to
phishing scams with the country facing over 3,750 attacks in
July-September this year, making it the fourth most attacked nation
globally, a report by leading IT services firm EMC said. Globally, firms
lost USD 1.7 billion on account of cyber criminals launching 1,25,212
phishing attacks in July-September 2013, witnessing a rise in attack
volume compared to the second quarter, says Anti-Fraud Command Center’s
(AFCC) fraud report for Q3 2013, prepared by EMC’s security division
RSA.
RSA is a provider of security, risk and compliance management
solutions for business acceleration. Phishing involves sending emails
purporting to be from reputable firms to unsuspecting individuals and
also corporate entities to induce then in revealing personal and
financial information like passwords, credit card numbers, etc.
“Total
amount of losses incurred in third quarter of 2013 are USD 1.66
Billion. Brands in the US, the UK, India and Australia were targeted by
almost 50 percent of the phishing attacks in Q3 2013,” the report said.
Firms
in the US incurred a loss of over USD 882 million followed by Germany
(USD 294 million), the UK (USD 133 million), India (USD 52.9 million),
South Africa (USD 43 million) and others (USD 261 million), it added.
RSA
ranked India the fourth most targeted country by phishing attacks,
receiving 3 percent of the total volume. Other countries targeted by
phishing attacks were US (53 percent), Germany (17 percent), the UK (8
percent) and South Africa (3 percent), it said.
India ranks third
in phishing attacks on brands with 7 percent of the total volume
worldwide. The US with 27 percent tops the chart followed by the UK with
12 percent. AFCC is a 24×7 war-room that detects, tracks, blocks and
shuts down phishing, pharming and Trojan attacks perpetrated by online
fraudsters.