Many Skype users in China have recently received fake messages saying they had won a prize and directing them to a look-alike version of the program’s Web site to claim it, said the National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team (CERT) on its Web site.

Phishing has been a major problem in China but the most targeted local sites have included banks and an online auction site that is similar to eBay, said Miao Deyu, a spokesman for Chinese antivirus software maker Antiy Labs.

Chinese companies and government organizations last year formed an antiphishing group which has identified and helped close at least 8,000 phishing sites, according to local media and Miao.

China’s CERT received just 1,200 reports of phishing last year, and it “resolved” just 320 of them, it said in an earlier report. Among the incidents reported to the group, Yahoo, eBay and banks like Wachovia and HSBC were the most commonly mimicked Web sites, a sign that many phishing sites hosted in China target Internet users abroad.

Western experts have said that China-hosted domains known to be malicious often remain up and have called for quicker action by local registrars and authorities to shut them down.

Source : Konaxis