back to article Rejoice, Blighty! UK is the TOP of the WHOLE WORLD ... for PHISHING

British punters are being served three times as many phishing links to trojans and exploit kits than the US, and five times more than the Germans, according to a ProofPoint study. The security researchers say that while the English were being served more malicious links, Germans were hit with the greatest amount of unsolicited …

  1. Anomalous Cowshed

    Yihaaaa!

    Britain is tops when it comes to phishing! That means...Britannia rules the waves again! Suck on that, American capitalistic piggies!

    1. Ted Treen

      Re: Yihaaaa!

      Or, when it comes to regulators (ISP & otherwise), it's too often a case of Britannia waives the rules...

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Cod War III

    Great to see that Phish stocks are recovering. Iceland will want some of the action.

  3. dotdavid

    Language

    I wonder whether we're bigger targets because English is more widely spoken worldwide than German.

    That said, I'd expect the US to be a bigger target if that were the case. Or did they work out the likelihood based on percentage of population?

    1. Lionel Baden
      Paris Hilton

      Re: Language

      Also how would it be worked in regards to location.

      Do they take the users location or the mailbox location ?

      the average phish per mailbox or % or population .... SO MANY QUESTIONS AHHHHHH

      paris due to feeling clueless to the stats

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Language

      "I wonder whether we're bigger targets because English is more widely spoken worldwide than German."

      According to the blog post Krauts have marginally more spam emails per user than Brits, Frogs or Yanks, although the differences are fairly small - so language of the user has little to do with the prevalence of spam. But within the spam emails the big difference is the number of dodgy links.

      It seems more likely that there are other considerations, such as (perhaps) higher levels of electronic banking in the UK versus other markets, weaker security in the UK versus other markets. Whilst gullibility may be a factor, the absence of a dodgy URL doesn't mean the spam isn't criminal, so it is difficult to conclude that Britain has a greater proportion of mugs. And reading the blog post, it seems to me that the authors define a malicious URL as one that seeks to serve malware - so potentially passive phishing isn't included.

      The other component is whether particular countries ISPs are better at blocking malicious content, although the spam figures suggest there's not much to choose.

      1. Sir Runcible Spoon

        Re: Language

        I reckon it's more likely due to non native English speakers having a better grasp of English grammar than native Brits do, so the obvious mistakes in spam emails are, well, obvious (to the non-natives).

        The grammatically challenged chav-generation may well not notice the glaring mistakes that set the spam-bells off.

  4. Lionel Baden

    Wait !! HOLD THE PRESS

    All the stats are skewed !!

    This is probably just my inbox, I get so much of the crap !!!! Im so sorry.

    although mind you receiving and falling for phishing are two different things. I receive so many phishing emails, but it doesn't mean i click on them.

    In that regard in my lifetime i have clicked on possibly only 1 and left the site when it was incorrect.

  5. Roger B

    Reporting a phishing email

    I emailed you guys at the weekend about me forwarding phishing emails onto the Halifax and their security address not liking attachments, how about an article/report/investigation into the steps the banks and other organisations do, including email providers when we report to them we have received phishing emails, does anything actually happen, or do they just get binned?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    That's okay.

    If you're not doing anything wrong you've got nothing to hide, so why wouldn't you want malware?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    mimicking organisations like the Royal Bank of Scotland.

    As a hard working Nigerian scammer I resent the implication that we are anything like RBS.

    Although if I was to receive a few billion quid in a government bailout I would need trusted people such as yourself to help me transfer the money - just send your account details to ...

    1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Headmaster

      Re: mimicking organisations like the Royal Bank of Scotland.

      "As a hard working Nigerian scammer I resent the implication that we are anything like RBS.

      Although if I was to receive a few billion quid in a government bailout I would need trusted people such as yourself to help me transfer the money - just send your account details to ..."

      Nigerian scammer grammar fail I think.

  8. JAK 1

    but do we click on the links?

    not sure if I missed something, but are they saying that we receive less SPAM but our SPAM is more likely to contain a dodgy URL? If so, presumably that doesn't matter, what would be interesting would be any figures on conversion/click-thru rates

    Any dodgy spammers/phishers out there willing to shed some light on where they succeed the most?

    1. G Watty What?
      Go

      Re: but do we click on the links?

      @JAK 1

      Of course we do. Just go to my site where I collate stats like this and you can see for yourself. It does ask for some details but that's just to keep the spam robots and scammers out. Check it out: http://www.drainmybankaccount.com/moreMulesHereBe

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    "Mimicking organizations like the Royal Bank of Scotland"...

    The way poor Brits are abused by their banking sector, these mails aren't phishing, they are probably just direct appeals for taxpayer money while cutting out the political middleman.

    "Dear British Citizen,

    Please send us your money. We could of course go to the government and get your money, but that involves a lot of threats and lobbying for us, and then you feeling bad about your political system. We would much prefer that you accept the inevitability of us getting our hands into your wallet, and make a personal decision to surrender your cash accordingly. The good news is that since we are a major bank, we take credit cards, cash, loose change--whatever you've got in your pockets. Please mail your remittance to....."

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Del Boy and Rodders?

    Are those guys working down hooky street again?

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