UK police claim 50% of the country’s phishing attacks come from 60 compromised businesses

The UK’s National Crime Agency says just 60 businesses with compromised servers could account for 50 percent of the phishing attacks originating from the country each month.

As part of a huge operation to arrest cybercrime suspects across the UK, which the agency called a “strike week”, 10 Regional Organised Crime Units, Police Scotland and the Police Service of Northern Ireland visited 60 companies and identified 5,531 compromises on servers.

Those affected servers can be used to send out spam email, launch attacks against websites or perpetrate phishing scams.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH-uEriFIHA

The week of action by the NCA has resulted in the arrest of 56 individuals. They include a 21-year-old man suspected of involvement in the 2012 theft of 400,000 email addresses and passwords from Yahoo.

Another 23-year-old man was arrested in the West Midlands on suspicion of breaking into the US Department of Defence’s global communication system in June 2014.

Other arrests in the bumper crop include a number of individuals suspected of developing malware and running DDoS attacks, two men suspected of stealing intellectual property from a London-based financial company and a couple suspected of cyber-fraud targeting high street retailers loyalty point schemes.

➤ 57 arrested in nationwide cyber crime strike week [NCA]

Image credit: National Crime Agency