Chinese users – a very attractive target for phishing attacks
Chinese people are increasingly getting online and adopting mobile services. 2014 was a pivotal year, with the massive adoption of mobile services by over 560 million users. It is anticipated that more than half of the entire population of China will have a smartphone by 2018 as the number edges past 700 million.
Additionally, China is one of the most developed markets in e-commerce and with mobile commerce via WeChat, the dominance of Alipay and a strong online shopping behavior is arguably more developed than Western markets.
Chinese users are therefore a very attractive target for phishing attacks: These attacks trick unsuspecting users into giving away their username and password for leading Chinese e-commerce brands and banks.
iCloud hack during Chinese launch of iPhone 6
As sales of Apple products rise in China, so does phishing targeting Chinese iCloud users. Hackers launched a campaign of phishing attacks the day the iPhone 6 went on sale in China. Other recent phishing attack targeting iPhone users include tens of malicious apps uploaded to the official App Store that were coded using malicious code spread by cyber-criminals. Developers were infected through posts on forums they frequently visited and by downloading commonly used code from supposedly faster (non-Apple) Chinese servers.
Real-time protection required
This is where a robust anti-phishing solution is critical to secure businesses, governmental departments and consumers. The solution needs to provide a near real-time view of phishing attacks with very wide coverage. CYREN offers service providers, OEM partners and organizations sensitive to phishing various anti-phishing services. Be in the Cloud through our CYREN Web Security service, or available as a phishing feed, or embedded in your infrastructure. CYREN delivers real-time, high-volume phishing URL data in a way that best suits your business and helps you to effectively block phishing attacks.
CYREN’s Phishing Intelligence Feed can prevent and protect from increased phishing attacks: Find out more.