India 2nd in list of top phishing hosting nations: Report

Phishing accounted for 29 per cent of all fraud attacks in the first quarter of 2019 and India stood second to the US on the list of top phishing hosting countries, a new report said on Thursday.

While overall phishing volume increased less than one percent quarter over quarter, in terms of overall fraud attacks, phishing decreased sharply due to the exponential growth of attacks from rogue mobile apps," said cyber security firm RSA.

"Fraud attacks from rogue mobile applications increased 300 per cent -- from 10,390 rogue apps in Q4 to 41,313 in Q1 2019, said the report.

Phishing is the fraudulent attempt to obtain sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by disguising oneself as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.

Fraud attacks introducing financial malware increased 56 per cent, from 6,603 in Q4 to 10,331 in Q1.

"Card-not-present (CNP) fraud transactions increased 17 per cent and 56 per cent of those originated from the mobile channel," the report added.

RSA recovered over 14.2 million unique compromised cards in Q1, a 33 per cent increase from the previous quarter.

In Q1, the overall number of fraudulent financial transactions reported decreased 25 per cent, with 72 per cent originating in the mobile channel.

Fraud from mobile browsers decreased slightly from 49 per cent last quarter to 43 per cent, while fraud from mobile apps increased slightly from 21 per cent to 29 per cent.

The average value of a fraudulent financial transaction in the mobile channel was $1,058.

--IANS

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