According to the RSA Anti Fraud Command Center, which tracks and dismantles phishing attacks, pharming and other online fraud techniques, phishing has been a steadily-growing menace to mid-sized and small financial institutions over the past year, with approximately 26% of all attacks recorded in June 2006 targeting regional US banks.
The RSA FraudAction service is designed for real-time detection of phishing and pharming attacks and the shutting-down of fraudulent sites worldwide, the blocking of fraudulent URLs, forensic work to help catch fraudsters, and patent-pending countermeasures.
The service is operated by RSA Security’s Anti-Fraud Command Center – where more than 40 fraud analysts analyze and qualify online fraud attacks – as well as contacts at internet service providers who assist the center in dismantling fraudulent websites. RSA says its ‘war-room’ has worked to shut down more than 18,000 fraudulent sites in over 65 countries since its operations began.
While there is a lot of buzz around Trojans, keyboard-loggers and various sophisticated attacks, the reality is that most online fraud is conducted via phishing attacks. In fact, we see several thousand of them every month, states Chris Young, SVP and general manager of the consumer solutions division at RSA Security.
