Phishing attacks hit an all-time high in May 2004 with nearly 1200 unique attacks reported to the Anti-Phishing Working Group. Each attack represents anywhere from 50,000 to 10 million spam emails directing readers to fraudulent websites, designed to fool recipients into divulging personal financial data such as credit card numbers, social security numbers, account logins and passwords.
Phishers are able to convince up to 5% of recipients to respond to them by hijacking the trusted brands of well-known banks, online retailers and credit card companies. Citibank topped the list of financial brand names hijacked by phishers, with eBay attracting a growing volume of attacks. Other targets included U.S. Bank, Visa, and AOL.
The Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) is an industry association focused on eliminating the identity theft and fraud that result from the growing problem of phishing and email spoofing.
Read the report and view the statistics related to the growing phishing problem at the APWGs site.