Kaspersky Lab Finds 1 in 5 Phishing Attacks Target Banks and Financial Institutions

High Number of Attacks Highlights Need for Security Protection of Personal Data For Online Financial Transactions

Woburn, MA – June 27, 2013 - Kaspersky Lab today announced that one in five phishing attacks, registered between May 2012 and late April 2013, targeted users of banks and other credit and financial institutions, according to the Company’s Evolution of Phishing Attacks report. The research also found that, of the most targeted webpages, banks and other financial organizations represented 20.64 percent of all identified phishing attacks worldwide. The increase in phishing threats points to a need for accurate security protection of users’ personal data when completing online financial transactions.

The Evolution of Phishing Attacks study was based on data collected from the cloud-based Kaspersky Security Network, which includes over 60 million participants around the world. These specific results from the study are further supported by the findings of a global survey conducted in the spring of 2013 by B2B International and Kaspersky Lab. This analysis found that about 37 percent of all banks surveyed were affected by phishing attacks at least once over the previous 12 months.

As a result, computers and mobile devices today need to have a quality security solution in place to ensure the safe use of online resources. Solutions like Kaspersky Lab’s Kaspersky PURE and Kaspersky Internet Security, which include Safe Money, a key technology that protects user data during online financial transactions. Safe Money includes advanced anti-phishing features, which prevent the execution of any potentially dangerous code in the browser. Additionally, the technology checks that users are entering legitimate sites using its constantly updated database of trusted websites and phishing URLs. At the same time, the heuristic mechanisms integrated in the Kaspersky Lab products can effectively detect malicious links even if they are not included in the database.

Quote:
Dmitry Bestuzhev
Head of Global Research and Analysis Team,Kaspersky Lab Latin America
“It’s no surprise that banking and financial institutions have increasingly attracted unwanted criminal attention. When attacking banks and its users, cybercriminals go right to the money - their main motivation. They can now successfully attack users by creating fake online banking service pages and online storefronts in order to obtain personal data from consumers. However, simply installing a security product with the functionality to protect financial operations, like Kaspersky Lab’s Safe Money, will protect even the most inexperienced users when conducting transactions online, protecting their credentials and other sensitive data from cybercriminals.”

About Kaspersky Lab
Kaspersky Lab is the world’s largest privately held vendor of endpoint protection solutions. The company is ranked among the world’s top four vendors of security solutions for endpoint users*. Throughout its more than 15-year history Kaspersky Lab has remained an innovator in IT security and provides effective digital security solutions for large enterprises, SMBs and consumers. Kaspersky Lab, with its holding company registered in the United Kingdom, currently operates in almost 200 countries and territories across the globe, providing protection for over 300 million users worldwide. Learn more at www.kaspersky.com.

* The company was rated fourth in the IDC rating Worldwide Endpoint Security Revenue by Vendor, 2011. The rating was published in the IDC report "Worldwide Endpoint Security 2012–2016 Forecast and 2011 Vendor Shares (IDC #235930, July 2012). The report ranked software vendors according to earnings from sales of endpoint security solutions in 2011.

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Media Contact
Sarah Bergeron
781.503.2615
sarah.bergeron@kaspersky.com