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APWG Launches Global Cybercrime Reporting Program
[October 27, 2014]

APWG Launches Global Cybercrime Reporting Program


CAMBRIDGE, Mass. --(Business Wire)--

The APWG, the global counter-cybercrime association, today announced the establishment of an open-access cybercrime reporting program to speed the collection and redistribution of cybercrime machine-event data to anti-virus vendors, security companies, investigators and responders.

The APWG Accredited Reporter Data Submission Program broadens the number of qualified contributors to the APWG's machine-event data clearinghouses across the globe in order to maximize the trans-industrial exchange of event data required to deflect, investigate and respond to cybercrime attacks in the first instance.

APWG Secretary General Peter Cassidy said, "Gone are the days when managers of the most phished brands on the Internet could fit around a table at a restaurant in San Francisco. The breadth of brands targeted by phishers today demands vastly broader sampling attack data and, as an NGO clearinghouse for these kinds of data, community outreach."

APWG established its initial URL Block List (UBL) repository in 2003 under demand from industry and NGOs for a central clearinghouse to receive phishing reports from brand holders and responders, and to distribute them to developers of security software, such as browser security toolbars and anti-virus systems as well as to cybercrime investigators requiring notification of attacks.

Andrew Turner, Vice President of Cyber Security at Visa, an APWG member since 2004, stated, "APWG membership and participation is one of the pillars of Visa's anti-phishing initiative. The Accredited Reporter program enhances APWG's ability to provide active intelligence, furthering Visa's speed and efficiency in combating online abuse."

APWG Microsoft (News - Alert) Delegate Shawn Loveland, who conceived of and recommended the formation of the Accredited Reporter program, said, "As one of the founding members of APWG, we are a longtime supporter of their efforts to protect users from phishing and other forms of abuse on the Internet. The APWG Accredited Report Program is another valuable service APWG has to help combat abuse on the Internet.

"The Accredited Reporter service will make it easy for companies, researchers, and others who discover a phishing sites to submit it once; and for APWG to quickly distribute it broadly to AV companies and to URL reputation services (like IE's SmartScreen)," Loveland said.



Since the URL Block List was established in 2003, responders and investigators from industry, government and NGO sectors have been motivated to route phishing reports in real time to the APWG's UBL to inform security applications and forensic programs, including:

  • Rapid distribution of block list notifications for spam filters, browsers, anti-phishing toolbars, web filters and proxies
  • Global protection of consumers and business from frauds involving commercial enterprises and brand-holders
  • Prevention of users globally from downloading malicious software developed to animate a financial crime
  • Prevention of users from disclosing login and password credentials
  • Benchmarking efficacy against others in similar industries to determine if fraudsters are targeting them more intensely
  • Informing forensic databases for researchers, industrial investigators and law enforcement to better succeed in legal investigations and actions against criminals who have multiple target companies in common
  • Data exchange with other members of an economy or government who are being affected by the same threats (phishing kits, malware distribution sites, botnet C&Cs, malicious IP addresses, reshippers, mules)

Any brand holder or responder that has cybercrime event data they want to be cleared through the UBL to alert software developers or inform investigators' forensic routines, should be participating in the Accredited Reporter program. If any brand holder wants to leverage the larger community of AV vendors, responders and investigators they'll be first and fastest to report transgressions against their brands.


The Accredited Reporter program introduces a new level of APWG membership, fees for which are waived for eligible NGOs and public-sector agencies. The data sheet and application form for the program is available here: http://docs.apwg.org/reports/Accredited_Reporter_Intro_and_Application.pdf

Questions about the program can be addressed by APWG Engineering and APWG managers who may be contacted at [email protected].

As the user base of the UBL expands, new applications for the data are continually suggested and considered for development under the APWG members' eCrime Exchange (eCX). Today, the APWG UBL is a dynamically updated archive of URLs and associated data that is submitted by the general public, APWG members, CERTs, cybercrime responders, contributing brand holders and data exchange correspondents.

About the APWG

The APWG, founded in 2003 as the Anti-Phishing Working Group, is the global industry, law enforcement, and government coalition focused on unifying the global response to electronic crime. Membership is open to qualified financial institutions, online retailers, ISPs and Telcos, the law enforcement community, solutions providers, multi-lateral treaty organizations, research centers, trade associations and government agencies. There are more than 2,000 companies, government agencies and NGOs participating in the APWG worldwide. The APWG's www.apwg.org and education.apwg.org websites offer the public, industry and government agencies practical information about phishing and electronically mediated fraud as well as pointers to pragmatic technical solutions that provide immediate protection. The APWG is co-founder and co-manager of the STOP. THINK. CONNECT. Messaging Convention, the global online safety public awareness collaborative www.stopthinkconnect.org and founder/curator of the eCrime Researchers Summit, the world's only peer-reviewed conference dedicated specifically to electronic crime studies www.ecrimeresearch.org.


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