India among countries worst hit by 'phishing' attacks in past year

India is among the countries that have been worst hit by increasing number of 'phishing' attacks last year, new study has found.

Cases of the insidious online scamming technique known as 'phishing', in which false sites and addresses are used to trick people into giving up personal information or installing malware, grew 87 percent worldwide over the past year, a security firm has said.

According to the Japan Times, the report by Russian-based security firm Kaspersky revealed that the schemes affected some 37.3 million people in the 12 months to April 30.

Kaspersky said that the number of fraudulent websites and servers used in attacks has more than tripled since 2012.

The firm added that more than 50 percent of the total number of individual targets was fake copies of the websites of banks and other credit and financial organizations.

According to the report, the attackers often used email purportedly sent from established organizations, such as Yahoo, Google, Facebook and Amazon.

Kaspersky said phishing has become the preferred method of cyber criminals.

The countries most often hit by phishing attacks were Russia, the United States, India, Vietnam and the Britain, the report added.