66% of all phishing attacks have been initiated by only one crime ring

According to a new report from Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG), Avalanche phishing gang, that use advanced malware, appeared to be responsible for 66% of all phishing attacks faced in the second half of 2009.

The gang thus targeted some 40 banks and online service providers, and domain name registrars and registries.

Avalanche was first distinguished in December of 2008, and was detected to be guilty in 24% of phishing attacks in the first half of 2009.  In the second half of 2009, the average Avalanche domain often hosted around 40 separate attacks at a time.

While the number of Avalanche attacks was enormously big, Avalanche domains were only about 14% of all domains used for phishing.