Phishers move to Europe, but not the Dutch

Websense has published a report that says that phishers are increasingly targeting smaller European banks over their larger American cousins. While not scientific, it is interesting.

The company discovered attacks against over two dozen European banks over the weekend, primarily against Spanish and Italian institutions.

Murtagh explained that phishers are increasingly targeting small non-English banks, which were formerly left alone because they have fewer users.

But Websense is now seeing more attacks against Spanish banks, since it is the fourth most widely spoken language in the world and offers access to customers in Europe and South America.

"The Dutch are hit less and have two-factor authentication, but the two aren't necessary linked," said Sandra Quinn from the Association for Payment Clearing Services. "The real reason could be that Dutch is quite difficult to speak."

I think the appropriate statement is that the Dutch haven't been hit yet and the real telling question is will they be hit and if so how hard? The two elements are linked in the mind of the phisher. I think they are making rational decisions about which markets to go after first (just like any commercial enterprise). Size of the market, cost of entry and likely returns. I think the phishers will attack the Dutch market last if at all.

The size of the market is a factor of the number of people that speak the language and the amount of money in the bank. Thus, I predict French (at the number 10 postion will get hit before Bengali at 7. Perhaps wealth distribution by language is a better way to look at it.