Phishing attacks worldwide have been bumping up against all-time highs, according to the Anti-Phishing Work Group.
The international coalition said its analysis from member organizations showed that 125,215 attacks were observed in the first quarter, the second-highest in the first three months of a year behind the 164,032 recorded in 2012.
The fraudsters also go where the money is, the APWG said in the first-quarter report it just issued. Payment services accounted for 46.51% of the targets, while other financial services firms were the target in 20.1% of the attacks and the retail/service sector was targeted 11.48% of the time.
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The APWG said targets in the United States continues to account for 40% to 60% of phishing forays each month, primarily because a large percentage of the world's websites and domain names are hosted in the United States.
"The number and diversity of phishing targets continued to increase," added Greg Aaron, APWG senior research fellow and president of Illumintel Inc. in Willow Grove, Pa. "Almost any enterprise that takes in personal data is a potential target."
The APWG also found that 32.7% percent of personal computers around the world were infected with malware or spyware.
The APWG collects data for its reports from several phishing feeds and private and industry sources and said it continues as the Internet's most comprehensive archive of phishing and email fraud activity.
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