Phishing scams cost Indian firms roughly $53 million in Q3 2013: EMC

Indian companies lost around USD 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 USD 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 USD 1.66 Billion. Brands in the US, the UK, India and Australia were targeted by almost 50 percent of the phishing attacks in Q3 2013," the report said.

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

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

India ranks third in phishing attacks on brands with 7 percent of the total volume worldwide. The US with 27 percent tops the chart followed by the UK with 12 percent. AFCC is a 24x7 war-room that detects, tracks, blocks and shuts down phishing, pharming and Trojan attacks perpetrated by online fraudsters.