It was just reported that email phishing scams have overtaken both emails with Trojans and emails with viruses. This really makes sense since phishing emails are much more difficult to detect with security software versus those which have malware attached to them.

Phishing attacks have outnumbered e-mails infected with viruses and Trojan horse programs for the first time, according to security experts.

Security mail services vendor MessageLabs reported on Monday that in January 2007, one in 93.3 e-mails (1.07 percent) comprised some form of phishing attack. There were fewer e-mails–one in 119.9, or 0.83 percent–infected with viruses.

The difference in the ratio of phishing to virus attacks is partly due to virus attacks becoming more targeted and no longer occurring as one large outbreak. This includes the recent Storm Worm and Warezov attacks, according to MessageLabs.[more]

Tags: Identity Theft