Use of Automated Phishing Toolkits

A phishing toolkit is a set of scripts that allows an attacker to automatically set up phishing Web sites that spoof the legitimate Web sites of different brands, including the images and logos associated with those brands. A look at the three most widely used phishing toolkits reveals that, on average, they alone were responsible for 42% of all phishing attacks detected in the first half of 2007. This shows the high percentage of complete automation used in phishing attacks compared to attacks that are only partially automated. Automation allows attackers to send a high volume of phishing messages that spoof several brands to a large number of recipients with minimal effort.

Source: Symantec Internet Security Threat Report, Vol. XII