LENEXA, Kan. – U.S. Central FCU this morning will announce it has selected anti-phishing systems from MarkMonitor in an effort to combat sophisticated attacks from the so-called Rock Phish organization, an anonymous group believed to be responsible for as much as half the phishing attacks being carried out.
The group first attacked U.S. Central in June, prompting U.S. Central, which had no anti-phishing systems in places, to seek out a defense. “Within the first few hours of that attack we knew we had to do something fast,” said Jean Golka, information technology risk manager for U.S. Central. “We instantly realized it was far too big a job for us to manage internally.”
Since then, MarkMonitor has helped U.S. Central and its member corporate credit unions shut down and prevent Rock Phish attacks.
Phishing allows third-parties to hijack a credit union’s or bank’s website and secretly direct members/customers to phony sites which allow the perpetrators to steal confidential account and other financial information.
San Francisco-based MarkMonitor, which monitors phishing attacks, says credit unions have become a particular target, with almost one-third of all phishing expeditions in the third quarter of 2007 aimed at credit unions.
