We are currently in the process ofcompiling the upcoming Symantec Internet Security Threat Report. I amputting together the phishing sections for the Asia-Pacific and Europe,Africa, and Middle East ISTRs. One of the things that we've noticed isthat there are several instances of very small countries hosting highnumbers of phishing Web sites. Obviously this raised the question ofwhy this would be.
After we'd gone through related data—bot-infected computers, spamzombies, phishing hosts, etc.—we couldn't come with any data that wouldexplain this emerging phenomenon. We asked ourselves what in thepolitical-economic profiles of these small nations would make themattractive for, or susceptible to, phishing Web sites, when one of ouranalysts pointed out that they are often used to host online gamblingsites. In part, this is because gambling sites that use real money (asopposed to free poker sites, for instance) are illegal in the UnitedStates. In other countries...
