According to APWG’s new Phishing Activity Trends Report, the number of unique phishing websites observed in Q1 2016 was a record 289,371, with 123,555 of those phishing sites detected in March 2016. Those quarterly and monthly totals are the highest the APWG has seen since it began tracking and reporting on phishing in 2004.

There was a 250 percent increase in phishing sites between October 2015 and March 2016.  “We always see a surge in phishing during the holiday season, but the number of phishing sites kept going up from December into the spring of 2016,” said Greg Aaron, APWG Senior Research Fellow and vice president of iThreat Cyber Group.  “The sustained increase into 2016 shows phishers launching more sites, and is cause for concern.”

The full text of the report is available here.

APWG Chairman Dave Jevans said, “Globally, attackers using phishing techniques have become more aggressive in 2016 with keyloggers that have sophisticated tracking components to target specific information and organizations such as retailers and financial institutions that top the list.”

APWG found that the Retail / Service sector continued to be the most heavily attacked. APWG member MarkMonitor observed more attacks targeting cloud-based or SAAS companies, which drove significant increases in the Retail/Service sector. Financial and Payment targets were also heavily targeted as usual.

The APWG, founded in 2003 as the Anti-Phishing Working Group, is a global industry, law enforcement, and government coalition of more than 1,800 institutions working to unify the global response to electronic crime.

Source: APWG