The Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG), a non-profit group committed to wiping out Internet scams and fraud, released a new phishing analysis this week showing some interesting trends in online crime.

According to APWG’s Global Phishing Survey, a lone criminal gang was responsible for generating two-thirds of all phishing attacks in the second half of 2009. This criminal group dominating the phishing scene, called ‘Avalanche’, “perfected a mass-production system for deploying phishing sites and crimeware – malware designed specifically to automate identity theft and facilitate unauthorized transactions from consumer bank accounts,” the APWG says in its report. There are also indications that Avalanche could be a successor to a past prolific crimeware operation, called Rock Phish.

Read the news report via IDG News Service, or view the full APWG findings.