Phishing attacks cost Indian firms Rs 328 cr in July-Sep

Indian companies lost around $53 million (about Rs 328 crore) due to phishing scams with the country facing over 3,750 attacks in July-September this year, making it the fourth most attacked nation globally, a report by leading IT services firm EMC said.

Globally, firms lost $1.7 billion on account of cyber criminals launching 1,25,212 phishing attacks in July-September 2013, witnessing a rise in attack volume compared to the second quarter, says Anti-Fraud Command Center's (AFCC) fraud report for Q3 2013, prepared by EMC's security division RSA. RSA is a provider of security, risk and compliance management solutions for business acceleration.

Phishing involves sending emails purporting to be from reputable firms to unsuspecting individuals and also corporate entities to induce then in revealing personal and financial information like passwords, credit card numbers, etc.

"Total amount of losses incurred in third quarter of 2013 are $1.66 billion. Brands in the US, the UK, India and Australia were targeted by almost 50 per cent of the phishing attacks in Q3 2013," the report said.

Firms in the US incurred a loss of over $882 million followed by Germany ($294 million), the UK ($133 million), India ($52.9 million), South Africa ($43 million) and others ($261 million), it added.

RSA ranked India fourth most targeted country by phishing attacks receiving 3 per cent of the total volume. Other countries targeted by phishing attacks were US (53 per cent), Germany (17 per cent), the UK (8 per cent) and South Africa (3 per cent), it said.

India ranks third in phishing attacks on brands with 7 per cent of the total volume worldwide. The US with 27 per cent tops the chart followed by the UK with 12 per cent.

AFCC is a 24x7 war-room that detects, tracks, blocks and shuts down phishing, pharming and Trojan attacks perpetrated by online fraudsters.