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IBM has conducted a study evidencing the number of overall phishing attacks has gone down so far this year to 0.1 % of all spam email as compared to a range of 0.2-0.8% at the same time in 2008, however criminals are learning new methods of attack. IBM also asserted that spam email has not increased this year as it has in the past.
Kris Lamb, IBM Internet Security Systems X-Force research team director said, “That is a huge, precipitous decline in the amount of phishing“¦I wouldn’t tell anybody that phishing has died as a threat
A potential reason for this decline is that criminals are acknowledging that internet users are savvier than in the past. An often used trick is mimicking the homepage of a well known and trusted organization such as PayPal.
IBM speculates that hackers are likely replacing phishing with trojans and malware to infect computers. Use of trojan horse programs has notably increased, the study said. Symantec security experts caution attacks are expected to increase during the holiday period.
