Technical opinionWhat drives the adoption of antiphishing measures by Hong Kong banks?

ABSTRACT

Introduction

Phishing mongers and posers have taken the world by a storm and it is estimated that the annual financial loss due to phishing scams is at least US $320 million. Hong Kong has been a hotspot of phishing attacks and since majority of phishing incidences occurring in the world are related to the financial services industry, banks in Hong Kong have been frequent targets. We conducted a study of Hong Kong banks in 2005 and 2007 to assess their phishing readiness and to understand the driving forces that shaped their adoption of anti-phishing measures (AM) over time. We searched the security related information available on the Web sites of the Hong Kong banks to determine AM adopted by them. We scored the banks based on the adoption of AM and related it to characteristics of banks and other plausible external factors.

REFERENCES

• 1: Hal Berghel, Phishing mongers and posers, Communications of the ACM, v.49 n.4, April 2006 [doi>10.1145/1121949.1121968]
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• 3: Chan, I. Better authentication allays online banking fears. ZDNet Asia (2007); www.zdnetasia.com/insight/specialreports/0,39044853,62020506,00.htm.
• 4: Financial Services Technology Consortium. Understanding and countering the phishing threat: A financial services industry perspective (2005); www.fstc.org/projects/docs/FSTC_Counter_Phishing_Project_Whitepaper.pdf.
• 5: Hong Kong Monetary Authority. Fraudulent bank websites and e-mails (2004); www.info.gov.hk/hkma/eng/press/2004/20041007e4.htm.
• 6: Liu, P., Seyyed, F.J. and Smith, S.D. The independent impact of credit rating changes - The case of Moody's rating refinement on yield premiums. Journal of Business Finance&Accounting 26, 3-4 (1999), 337--363.
• 7: Tyler Moore , Richard Clayton, Examining the impact of website take-down on phishing, Proceedings of the anti-phishing working groups 2nd annual eCrime researchers summit, p.1-13, October 04-05, 2007, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania [doi>10.1145/1299015.1299016]

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.2 COMPUTER-COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
      C.2.0 General

Additional Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.3 COMPUTERS AND EDUCATION
      K.3.2 Computer and Information Science Education
  K.6 MANAGEMENT OF COMPUTING AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS
      K.6.5 Security and Protection (D.4.6, K.4.2)