Phishers Targeting Credit Unions and Smaller Financial Firms

Phishers are taking aim at ever-smaller financial targets, an association of technology companies said Friday in its monthly report on the e-scams and schemes.

According to the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG), a collection of over 1,400 companies, banks, ISPs, and government agencies, April saw a large increase in the number of credit unions targets by phishers. Both relatively large regional credit unions to niche institutions that serve narrow groups of workers were targeted, said the APWG.

"Hackers are modifying their attack methods by shifting away from attacking popular or large institutions," said the APWG in its report.

Other trends in April, said the APWG, included a slight decline in the number of phishing e-mails -- it dropped about 4 percent from March's tally -- and a 1.6 fall in the number of phishing Web sites.

There's also evidence that phishers are cooperating, said the APWG, which noticed several occasions in April when multiple attacks were launched simultaneously at the same target. "This points to a common root, or -- at least -- some interconnection and organization among phishers," concluded the report.

April's report can be downloaded in PDF format from the APWG Web site.