Four in 10 phishing scams end up in Blighty's inbox

The UK suffered the greatest number of phishing attacks globally last year as criminals used UK banks as bait for unwary consumers.

A total of 135,426 phishing attacks were detected across the world in 2008, 40 per cent of which were aimed at the UK, security firm RSA has found.

According to a report by the company, the UK underwent a "marked increase" in phishing attacks as "a result of several massive surges of attacks against a small number of UK financial institutions during 2008".

Globally, the volume of phishing attacks in 2008 grew by 66 per cent year-on-year, peaking in April with 15,002 separate attacks in that month.

The country that hosted the largest number of attacks, as judged by the location of the ISP or the hosting company, was the US - accounting for 60 per cent of all phishing traffic. The UK meanwhile rated joint third most popular origin for phishing attacks.