Criminals set up phishing sites in seconds

Hackers are able to create a fully-working phishing site within two seconds, warns the latest Online Fraud Report from IT security specialist RSA.

Researchers at the company's Anti-Fraud Command Centre (AFCC) said that phishing gangs can get a fully-functional phishing website installed on a compromised host in a matter of seconds. The hackers simply have to double click on a single file to do so.

The old method of manually installing files in multiple directories required many sessions on the zombie computer, increasing the chance of being detected by security products, according to RSA. Hackers have now automated the process so only one visit is required to make a fake site live.

"The 'kit' is a single PHP code file, which is run on the compromised server once, and automatically creates the relevant directories and installs all of the files which are associated with the specific phishing site," said the report's authors. "Within seconds after running the file, a complete phishing site is 'live'."

It said the new malware contained a number of PHP and HTML files which have been traced in several phishing attacks, all targeting the same financial institution. The company declined to specify which organisation had been targeted.

RSA said the new development could also enable gangs to automatically search out vulnerable computers to compromise them without hacking into the machine.

It said the potential combination of these methods, tracing and compromising vulnerable servers, along with plug-and-play phishing kits "would significantly decrease the workload involved in creating and launching new attacks."

The company said that 70 per cent of banks targeted by phishers were based in the US. UK banks made up nine per cent.

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