As one of the top cyber crime ploys impacting both consumers and businesses, phishing has remained a consistently potent threat over the past several years. In fact, the cumulative number of phishing attacks recorded in 2011 represented a 37 per cent increase over 2010.

You no longer need to be a sophisticated hacker to commit fraud on the Internet. Anyone who is motivated can join in, thanks to the off-the-shelf phishing kits provided by a thriving cyber crime ecosystem. Cyber criminals are even migrating to a new business model known as malware-as-a-service (MaaS), where authors of exploit kits offer extra services to customers in addition to the exploit kit itself.

This fraud alert highlights the current growth and trends in today’s phishing schemes, the potential impact on companies, and insight into how businesses can apply technology to protect themselves and their customers.